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.
August 9, 2019
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…
August 7, 2019
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…
July 29, 2019
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…
July 23, 2019
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…
July 8, 2019
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…
June 27, 2019
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.
June 20, 2019
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…
June 5, 2019
Eclipsing megahits like The Crown and Breaking Bad, HBO’s new series on Chernobyl is now the highest-rated TV series ever, The Economist reports.
June 5, 2019
It wouldn’t be accurate to say that today the world “celebrates” World Environment Day because the news is so grim. From 7 million people killed every year by air pollution and soaring deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon to the global climate crisis, there’s more worry…