15 Most Toxic Places to Live

[FSogol]

Scary photo-article:
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/p...

[MountainLaurel]

1. Appalachia, representing!

Goes to show, "clean coal" is a dirty lie.

[Warpy]

14. It's the most beautiful country in the US

and no, the Rockies I see out my kitchen window can't quite compare.

I remember going through as a little kid, mile after mile of drop dead gorgeous scenery, then coming down into the Kanawha Valley and seeing that Union Carbide plant and wondering "How could they?"

Corporate types are allergic to beauty and try to throw their garbage all over everything.

[blues90]

53. Bob Kincaid on head-on radio lives there and talks about

this on his internet radio show all the time. He's lives in WV .

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. The Citarum River? Where?

[Mrs. Overall]

3. Can anyone guess the one place in the US that made the list?

Appalachia.

[seabeyond]

11. destruction yes. but not toxic, unless it is something i dont get. nt

[FSogol]

15. It is toxic when all the dust and sediment turn the rivers and stream into slurry.

It kills all life in those rivers.

[seabeyond]

18. thanks, appreciate the info. i didnt think of that. does it equaL top

15 in the world? and like three other places they pointed out, maybe two... haiti and another place, i forget. deforestation.

i just dont think it is accurate in listing. not that i dont see the damage, and totally opposed. i see it in the mountain areas i go to and just hate it.

[Jennicut]

4. Linfen, China

Its like night time there all the time.

[HopeHoops]

5. Well, now I don't need lunch.

I'd just puke it back up after looking at that.

[mikelgb]

6. ugh

[madokie]

7. jimminee crickets

Wow is all I can say

[TwilightGardener]

8. Utterly depressing. Can't believe the pic of those Indian kids floating

in a sea of garbage.

[seabeyond]

10. wasnt it. something. nt

[seabeyond]

9. problem with title. not destruction to earth but toxic... and i am not seeing how toxic

with a couple of those areas they chose. want to put under most destruction to earth, with it.

anyway...

interesting

[Control-Z]

12. Wow. Horrifying.

Truly horrifying. I don't understand why some of these areas can't be cleaned up, not easily, but more easily then the chemical and radioactive areas. Like The North Pacific Gyre:


An island of trash twice the size of Texas floats in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, circulated by the currents of the North Pacific Gyre. The trash, which is mostly made up of plastic debris, floats as deep as 30 feet below the surface.

Why aren't we cleaning up the trash? It's all together, right there in one place, and mostly plastic. Maybe efforts are being made. I'll have to research it. As for Appalachia - I'm appalled. That is just unacceptable in the US.

[prowling cougar]

21. That is why I am so gung-ho about recycling and using tote bags!

We have to be the change we wish to experience and it starts with small steps. Plasitc bags and Styrofoam are tools of Satan. First thing is to bring your own bags (hey, BYB) and encourage local take-out places not to use Styrofoam.

[misanthrope]

34. Clean it up? Where's the profit in that?**nm

**

[Control-Z]

41. Oh, silly me.

I forgot about the profits.

[BlooInBloo]

44. Does anybody have a pic of this from further out? Showing the size and density of it?

I've never been able to find one.

[Control-Z]

47. There is a video

linked at the pic. It helps explain why clean up would be so difficult and does show the island of trash from other angles and distances.

[BlooInBloo]

50. I guess I'm missing something. All I see is pic 5/16, an uber close up...

giving absolutely no perspective on the magnitude of it.

[Control-Z]

52. To the right of the pic

there is a description of The North Pacific Gyre with a link below it: MNN Interactive: What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

The video is about 1/4 to 1/3 down the page it links to.

[Libertas1776]

45. I read

through a link in the article about the Gyre, that clean up could potentially bankrupt any entity or country that attempts such an undertaking, there's so much garbage.

[Control-Z]

46. Also, it would be impossible to do

without killing a lot of fish and other sea life. They would be caught in any nets that could clean up especially the smaller bits of degraded plastic. Really sad, since fish are eating bits of plastic they mistake for food. It will probably kill them one way or the other in the end.

[madmom]

13. A link to show some of what is happening in Appalachia, what is happening here affects us all

http://climategroundzero.net/about-us/

[doc03]

16. Only one of them is in the USA

[RadiationTherapy]

17. It is reassuring to know it has gone so far.

It can't be long now.

[G_j]

27. until what, we all break out in boils?

[NeedleCast]

19. Curious as to why Cherynobal is on that list

Wildlife has been flourishing there for years.

[Posteritatis]

38. Wildlife's been *existing* there

There's a lot of defects, mutations, and shortened life expectancies in the wildlife around Chernobyl, to say nothing of the few humans who insisted on staying who are still alive.

There's life in the reactors at Chernobyl; I wouldn't say the existence of life someplace necessarily means it's not polluted.

[L0oniX]

20. Space Trash ...I wrote a song by that name back in the 80's. I knew it was coming.

[Quantess]

48. Devo had a song called "Space Junk"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx_3hw3TCjE

[Blue_Tires]

22. disgusted kick

[ddeclue]

23. I'm lazy - no blind links please... give us at least a snippet before asking us to click a link.

[Control-Z]

25. Seriously, it is your

loss, or gain, depending on you look at it. It's some pretty tough reality, I'll admit.

[armyowalgreens]

24. You know it's bad when Chernobyl/Pripyat is 14th.

[flvegan]

26. Just shake us off, Mother Earth.

It's for your own good.

[G_j]

28. wow

[Touchdown]

29. That's ok. The Sun's going to go red giant and incinerate Earth anyway.

Like 20 Million years from now.

[armyowalgreens]

35. I'm pretty sure the Sun will not become a red giant for several billion years.

[Zomby Woof]

30. "Garbage" - Pete Seeger

GARBAGE

Mister Thompson calls the waiter, orders steak and baked potato
Then he leaves the bone and gristle and he never eats the skins;
The busboy comes and takes it, with a cough contaminates it
And puts it in a can with coffee grinds and sardine tins;
The truck comes by on Friday and carts it all away;
And a thousand trucks just like it are converging on the Bay, oh,

Garbage (garbage, garbage, garbage) Garbage!
We're filling up the sea with garbage (garbage. . .)
What will we do when there's no place left
To put all the garbage? (garbage. . .)

Mr. Thompson starts his Cadillac and winds it down the freeway track
Leaving friends and neighbors in a hydro-carbon haze;
He's joined by lots of smaller cars all sending gases to the stars.
There they form a seething cloud that hangs for thirty days.
And the sun licks down into it with an ultraviolet tongue.
Till it turns to smog and settles down and ends up in our lungs, oh,

Garbage (garbage. . .) Garbage!
We're filling up the sky with garbage (garbage. . .)
What will we do
When there's nothing left to breathe but garbage (garbage. . .)

Getting home and taking off his shoes he settles down with the evening news,
While the kids do homework with the TV in one ear
While Superman for the thousandth time sells talking dolls and conquers crime
Dutifully they learn the date of birth of Paul Revere.
In the paper there's a piece about the mayor's middle name,
And he gets it done in time to watch the all-star bingo game, oh,

Garbage (garbage. . .)
We're filling up our minds with garbage
Garbage (garbage. . .)
What will we do when there's nothing left to read
And there's nothing left to need
And there's nothing left to watch
And there's nothing left to touch
And there's nothing left to walk upon
And there's nothing left to talk upon
Nothing left to see
And there's nothing left to be but
Garbage (garbage. . .)

In Mister Thompson's factory, they're making plastic Christmas trees
Complete with silver tinsel and a geodesic stand
The plastic's mixed in giant vats from some conglomeration
That's been piped from deep within the earth or strip-mined from the land.
And if you question anything, they say, "Why, don't you see?
It's absolutely needed for the economy," oh,

Oh, Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage!
Their stocks and their bonds -- all garbage!
Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage!
What will they do when their system goes to smash
There's no value to their cash
There's no money to be made
But there's a world to be repaid
Their kids will read in history books
About financiers and other crooks
And feudalism, and slavery
And nukes and all their knavery
To history's dustbin they're consigned
Along with many other kinds of garbage.
Garbage! Garbage! Garbage! Garbage!

[G_j]

32. #1

[npk]

31. Damn India.

That country made the list several times. That one shot where the boy is floating in the river of trash almost made me barf. Some of us don't know how good we have it. Even though it's not always perfect.

[Liberal_in_LA]

40. just saw the photo

bleh. Guess we don't have it so bad in Los Angeles

[berni_mccoy]

43. +1

[misanthrope]

33. Behold the glory and handiwork of homo sapiens...

...and a sadly narrowing future.

[sakabatou]

36. So when do we create an orbiting waste disposal unit to clean space?

[Posteritatis]

37. The shot of the Haitian border - gah. (nt)

[pampango]

39. I had heard that the Soviet Union had left some environmental disasters, but 3 of the top 15.

Russia has more than either China or India which are so overpopulated that they are almost environmental disasters waiting to happen.

[G_j]

42. Kick

[Odin2005]

49. That's depressing.

[bridgit]

51. Human dumb asses to the last but hey! Props to Russia for their solid two entries...

I think it was *and* for pushing Ukraine (so that's like 3 botta *bing!*) into that squalid pantheon with Chernobyl that's bad ass, no really, as in bad/very bad - really - I should start lobbying Monterrey Bay Aquarium for a North Pacific Gyre aquatic trash forest environ, it'd make an interesting exhibit