Ecological disaster: a list of the world's dirtiest countries

The industrialization of countries in the 20th century has brought the world to the threshold of ecological disaster. Water bodies are polluted, forests are cut down, automobile and factory exhausts make the air poisonous, garbage is stored in landfills and rots there for decades, poisoning the environment and groundwater. Few countries are concerned about this situation, making attempts to recycle garbage.

Consider the question of which country has the dirtiest air, and the authorities are unwilling to deal with garbage issues. The culture of behavior of the residents themselves is also taken into account.

Sources of environmental problems

The 20th century was a century of technological progress, which had disastrous consequences for the environment. The increase in the number of inhabitants of the planet and the consumption of resources led to the emergence of local and global environmental problems.

The main sources of ecosystem complexity in the world are:

• Reduction of animals, plants, birds. Man is displacing other biological species, exterminating them. The Red Book puts new names on its pages every year.
• Deforestation: According to a UN report, up to 13 million hectares of the world's forests are cut down each year. Only 45% of these are replenished. Man forgets that trees enrich the air with oxygen.
• Pollution of water bodies has become a global problem. From rivers, trash flows into the ocean, causing the extinction of marine species. At the same time, many countries have a shortage of drinking water.
• Household waste storage. Hazardous substances decompose in the soil over the years, contaminating water and soil.
• Overexploitation of the soil leads to a loss of its fertility.
• Destruction of the ozone layer. The problem of ozone holes has not been solved in most countries of the planet, and the protective layer of the earth continues to thin.

The source of environmental problems is primarily man himself. Overpopulation of the planet entails the active use of natural resources and the siphoning of minerals. It is important to correctly assess the scale of the disaster and to combat the sources of its occurrence.

Criteria for assessing the environmental situation

Ministries of Natural Resources or equivalent authorities in different countries approve criteria according to which the environmental situation in different regions is evaluated. According to these criteria, the level of well-being is determined. The classification has several gradations:

• satisfactory;
• relatively satisfactory;
• intense;
• critical;
• ecological emergency;
• ecological disaster.

The political leadership is obliged to take action according to the degree of disadvantage in the region:

• control the sources of pollution;
• environmental risk analysis;
• improvement of legislation in the sphere of natural resource management.

These measures make it possible to identify an acceptable level of negative consequences for the environment. Note that on paper these measures are implemented in many countries, but the corruption of officials and big business prevents the implementation of real steps to improve the situation.

List of the world's dirtiest cities

All major cities on the planet are places of increased danger to humans, animals and flora. We present a rating of the most dangerous cities in the world. They are so polluted that it is dangerous to be there.

Numbeo, an independent agency, compiles an annual ranking of the most polluted cities. Here are the statistics for 2019.

Place	City	Country/Region	Pollution index
1	Accra	Ghana	97,03
2	Tetovo	Macedonia	96,85
3	Kabul	Afghanistan	95,63
4	Kathmandu	Nepal	95,60
5	Faridabad	India	95,46
6	Ulaanbaatar	Mongolia	95,33
7	Ghaziabad	India	95,19
8	Cairo	Egypt	93,73
9	Ho Chi Minh City	Vietnam	93,21
10	Dhaka	Bangladesh	93,08
11	Noida	India	92,18
12	Varanasi	India	91,99
13	Delhi	India	91,88
14	Allahabad	India	91,85
15	Manila	Philippines	91,75

The dirtiest city in Russia according to this organization is Chelyabinsk with an index of 89.19. It is the 23rd line in the list. The problem of garbage and pollution within the country should also be evaluated. Waste is also stored outside the cities.

Rating of countries with bad ecology in every region of the world

Developed countries solve the problem of storing and disposing of waste in different ways. Household waste is recycled, hazardous and radioactive waste is taken to landfills.

Consider the example of developed European countries. Garbage accumulated at home, the man himself separates by placing separately:

• glass;
• plastic;
• paper;
• organic waste;
• Hazardous (e.g., old batteries, light bulbs);
• non-recyclable waste.

The last category is not recyclable, all other garbage can be recycled at specialized plants. Citizens who approach the problem consciously, make a huge contribution to the ecology of their own country. A number of companies support residents and financially, paying for the collected bottles or waste paper.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, on the territory of which there were more than 500 waste recycling plants, Russia is again starting this path on the example of European countries.

We present a ranking called "The Dirtiest Country," dividing the numbers by continent.

In Africa

The top 10 most environmentally unsafe areas in Africa are as follows:

• Nigeria;
• Egypt;
• Ethiopia;
• Kenya;
• Zimbabwe;
• Tunisia;
• Morocco;
• Algeria;
• Tanzania;
• Mauritius.

The main problem of this continent is the pollution of rivers, soil, and the ocean. Waste is burned on the coast, some of it carried away by the current.

The ranking excluded a number of African countries, whose data are not fully understood due to the dangerous political situation: Sudan, the CAR, Somalia, and Burundi.

In Europe.

The situation with the pollution of soil, air, internal waters in European countries is much better than in Asia and Africa. The top 10 ranking of "The dirtiest country in Europe" is as follows:

• Monaco;
• Macedonia;
• Albania;
• Malta;
• Ukraine;
• Bulgaria;
• Bosnia and Herzegovina;
• Russia;
• Serbia;
• Romania.

Monaco received a high score due to the small size of the territory. Finland, Iceland, Sweden and Denmark can boast an excellent attitude to the environment.

In Asia

Asia is a part of the world that, according to the estimates of international organizations, is polluted with waste, industrial emissions. There is little promotion of separate waste disposal among the population, and few states can afford recycling.

According to the independent agency Transparensy International, the level of perception of corruption in Asia and Africa is high. This has a direct impact on environmental security indicators.

The list of the dirtiest countries in Asia in 2019 looks like this:

1. Mongolia;
2. Myanmar;
3. Afghanistan;
4. Bangladesh;
5. Lebanon;
6. Vietnam;
7. Nepal;
8. China;
9. Jordan;
10. Cambodia.

The best indicators have Oman, Japan and Singapore. There is an opinion among tourists that India is the dirtiest country in Asia. Such an opinion is formed after watching travel shows like "Head & Tails". This is not entirely true. In this country there are local problems of urban pollution, garbage, unsanitary conditions. According to the scale of pollution Numbeo country ranks 15th.

The situation with environmental safety in the Americas is much better. Peru is the most polluted territory here. Second place by a wide margin is occupied by the Dominican Republic. The least polluted state is Canada.

Top 10 dirtiest countries in the world

We present the overall ranking of states. The first lines of the top 10 are occupied by countries whose governments have no idea how to deal with the problem of waste dumping. The main parameters of the assessment:

• air pollution;
• water quality, its availability;
• pollution on city streets.

Mongolia

The first place of the anti-rating in 2019 went to Mongolia. This country does not have a single recycling plant, landfills are growing, poisoning the air, soil and groundwater. Chinese companies have been negotiating with the Mongolian authorities since 2013, wanting to build an incinerator in the capital. Meanwhile, discontent of citizens is growing, who are forced to come out in protests against the opening of new landfills and for the closure of old.

Myanmar

Major cities in Myanmar are drowning in household waste, stored near citizens' homes. Japan will try to solve the problem by allocating funds for the construction of a new landfill. However, such a decision will only worsen the country's situation. Myanmar has not expressed a willingness to build waste recycling facilities.

Afghanistan

Political contradictions have accompanied Afghanistan for centuries. The problem of garbage is not considered important here, so cities are littered with household waste, and Afghan children warm themselves by burning garbage. There is no question of separating the waste and recycling it.

Bangladesh

The world's dirtiest countries for garbage could not do without Bangladesh. This state has several giant landfills for storing, sorting and further incinerating waste, where people work for paltry pay. There are 200 plastic bottle recycling plants in the state.

Lebanon

In Lebanon, the problem of waste disposal has not been solved. People have been protesting to get the garbage off the city streets, with no results. The closure of a landfill in eastern Beirut in 2016 resulted in bags of waste blocking traffic. The situation threatens the environmental safety of the Mediterranean Sea.

Nigeria

Nigerian authorities have been accepting garbage from Europe and the U.S. for three decades. Here it is sorted. Landfills are poorly controlled and today garbage rivers have joined major and urban areas. Residents sew clothes and shoes from waste. Nature, people and neighboring states suffer from toxic substances. What manages to burn is 10% of the total dirt imported. The rest rots and decays in the sunlight.

The city of Lagos is the largest in Nigeria. Today it has become an international testing ground and is infested with rats. Epidemics are commonplace here.

Vietnam

A tourist coming to Vietnam sees one side of the coin. If you step away from your hotel and walk through the streets of cities, you can see garbage, rats. The main packaging in developing countries is plastic. They are littered with the once clean beaches of Vietnam, the streets of small towns. The state is not interested in clearing the area of plastic ballast. According to the University of Georgia, Vietnam is one of the five most polluting countries in the world ocean.

Egypt

A visit to the eastern part of Cairo will not pass without leaving a trace. The day will be remembered for the rest of your life. Here the waste brought in bags is sorted. After sorting, the unfit for recycling is sent to an incineration site located behind the houses. The air of this area of Cairo is saturated with stench and smoke, but people live here and children are born.

There are dozens of such corners of horror in Egypt.

Nepal

Authorities in Nepal have long talked about how the world's highest peak, Everest, has become a tourist garbage dump. In late 2018, China banned climbers from the north side of the base camp because of accumulated waste. Teams are being created to clean up the summit, but if you go down, it turns out the situation is no better in the cities.

Nepal is drowning in plastic waste, the Nepalese themselves are used to this situation, do not pay attention to the environment.

Monaco

The Principality in the south of Europe has become a hostage of its own development and the dwarf size of its territory. The citizens of Monaco can afford products in expensive packaging. Scientists have calculated that each resident of India leaves behind 1.3 kilograms of household waste per day, a resident of Monaco - over 3 kilograms of garbage.

In 2017, there was a problem with storage and recycling, and residents began to complain about bags of garbage left on the street for days at a time. The recycling plant could not handle the load.

Conclusion

The dirtiest country at the beginning of 2019 is Mongolia. Russia ranks 51st in this rating. Finland is considered the dirtiest. The lack of a solution to the problem is a consequence of the fact that corrupt officials benefit from collecting garbage and burying it near residential areas. We should not forget that residents themselves pay for freedom from garbage, eventually becoming hostages of stinking mountains.

Another challenge for developing countries is the presence of hazardous substances in the shadow zone. Mercury, heavy metals are stored together with other products, creating an area of high danger to both humans and the environment.

Conclusions

1. Garbage, air pollution, and ocean pollution are complex problems of mankind. The struggle against them is only at the level of talk and the construction of recycling plants in developed countries.
2. Each country sets its own criteria for assessing environmental safety.
3. The dirtiest city in the world is Accra, located in Ghana (Africa). It is surrounded by electronics destruction sites and soaked with soot. The dirtiest city in Russia is Chelyabinsk.
4. Looking at the problem on a regional level, it appears that developing countries are being held hostage by garbage. The safest regions are the Americas. GAHP Corporation (Global Alliance on Health and Pollution) has launched a detailed online cardThe data is updated and the information is expanded.