It is a common misperception that disease is responsible for most illness, when in fact toxins and pollutants in the environment are a major source of illness and reduced life spans globally.
Unlike diseases, toxins and pollutants like lead, mercury, chromium, radionuclides and pesticides were created by humans and are often improperly disposed of in a classic example of fouling our own nests.
"To be honest, we were astonished the number was so large," said Bret Ericson of the Blacksmith Institute, a small international NGO that released its annual report "World's Worst Pollution Problems Report 2011" last week.
At least 100 million people are affected based on assessments of 2,000 toxic sites in 47 countries. Most of these sites are right inside villages and towns - all are close to people.
"There are thousands more sites out there," Ericson told IPS.
In an effort to stem the rising tide, Blacksmith and its partner Green Cross Switzerland, a group focused on environmental health, work with countries such as Vietnam as advisors. A big part of the Vietnamese economy is based on what are called "craft villages" that are in reality informal industrial operations that even include village-level aluminium smelters, Ericson said.
"These places have terrible emissions problems and it's affecting the health of the people," he said. "We're working with the government to find ways to reduce emissions and recommend things people can do to protect their health.
"We gave them a device to measure emissions of VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and they were delighted and eager to use it," he said.
Starting in 2008, Blacksmith and Green Cross Switzerland undertook an inventory of all the toxic sites they could find since most countries don't have their own inventories or good data on what these sites contain. These are primarily legacy or abandoned sites and are all in the developing world. Ongoing industrial and large petro-chemical sites were not included.
