In India, Pure Earth has been working closely with local officials, industry and other stakeholders on the widely-documented problem of toxic pollution in the country. In fact the government is planning on prioritizing the top ten worst polluted sites in the country for cleanup, building in part on Pure Earth’s data.
This October, the CII Communique – a magazine published by the influential Confederation of India Industry – highlighted the results of two studies that analyzed polluted sites across Asia identified through Pure Earth’s Toxic Sites Identification Program (TSIP), a global effort to identify waste sites implemented jointly with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.
The studies arrive at a sobering conclusion – polluted sites are a large and heretofore insufficiently studied public health threat, with lead being one of the worst pollutants threatening children.
India figures prominently in both studies.
One of the findings estimates that about 50,000 Indian children are at risk of diminished intelligence from exposure to toxic lead.
* Read the full article The Risks of India’s Unseen Pollution Menace or link to the Oct. issue of CII Communique magazine.
Read the two studies:
*Burden of disease from toxic waste sites in India, Indonesia, and the Philippines in 2010, Environmental Health Perspectives, June 2013
* The burden of disease from pediatric lead exposure at hazardous waste sites in 7 Asian countries, Environmental Research, 2013
