Air pollution—already linked to an increased risk of lung cancer, stroke, heart disease, etc.—is now associated with a new risk: eye disease. China Medical University in Taiwan researchers linked air pollutants nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide to a higher risk of…
Move over, concrete-and-steel behemoths. There’s a new high-rise on the rise. Amid growing environmental concerns about concrete, high-tech timber buildings have shot up in Europe, North America and the Asia Pacific. Innovations in timber technology have eroded concerns…
Newark, New Jersey is handing out bottled water this week after the city’s “fleeting solution” to lead contamination in the drinking water supply was flagged by the EPA, NPR’s Sasha Ingber reports.
Improving the quality of the urban water supply has historically led to major declines in mortality. However, poor areas often subsist on intermittent water supplies at collection points that are at risk for contamination. A novel passive chlorination device tested in poor…
Renew Ganga, a pilot effort in India, has turned to Varanasi’s waste pickers to clean up the polluted Ganges River and keep plastic from reaching the ocean. As it winds through India, the sacred river soaks up untreated sewage and trash, including ~1.2 billion pounds of…
The unmatched population boom in Africa’s cities is causing serious sewage problems, and spreading cholera. For example, Kampala, Uganda—which some 3 million people pass through each day—has less than 800 pay toilets and 14 free facilities. The city sewer system covers less…
Decades early, average temperatures in some Kenyan counties are 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrialized levels. Researchers predicted a global 1.5C increase by 2030-2052. 2 Kenyan counties already average 1.91C increases since 1969 and several others range from 1.59…
Amid record temperatures and wrenching drought, the taps are still running for the well-heeled residents of New Delhi, who enjoy limitless water supply for $10-$15 a month. Poorer residents in densely populated settlements say they are paying that much for just a week’s…
Spain is in the throes of a massive forest fire, fueled by a stifling heatwave blanketing Europe, the Evening Standard reports. The fire in the Catalonia area, the area’s most serious in 2 decades, has consumed 4,000 hectares of forest and spurred evacuations.
Americans export 68,000 shipping containers of recyclables annually—mostly to developing nations. China recently closed its borders to shipments while others take on far more than they can process. In Indonesia and Vietnam, plastics pour in so abundantly that the countries…
