When Tiwonge Mzumara-Gawa was a child, her mother sent her to market with a basket woven from grasses. “But now we don't do that,” she says, because plastic has taken…
Kataragama, SRI LANKA — For centuries, barefoot pilgrims have walked through the arid jungles and lush forests of Sri Lanka’s east and south, following a sacred route to a fabled…
Three communities in Papua New Guinea are waiting for the country’s Supreme Court to decide whether their concerns about the dumping of mine waste in the sea near their homes…
Major streets of Yaoundé, the political capital of Cameroon, have turned into open sewers. Every day, hundreds of cubic meters of liquid waste — enough to fill more than an…
SUKOHARJO, Indonesia — Sarmi recalls the unusual blight that fell over Gupit village around 2017, when doves and finches appeared to vanish from the sky. “With pollution that acrid and…
JAKARTA — A deadly landslide in an Indonesian industrial park has reignited concerns over poor safety and environmental standards in the country’s booming nickel sector, a key supplier of battery…
UGGUBSENI and ISBERYALA, Guna Yala, Panama — “Our ancestors fought for this land,” says Jair Goporas, 21. He leans forwards into the dim glow of a bare bulb, his eyes…
JAKARTA — With the Islamic month of Ramadan now over, a familiar sight has returned to the streets of daytime Jakarta: street vendors serving up chicken porridge, and everyone from…
Ever since the Upamayo Dam on Peru’s Lake Chinchaycocha was built in 1932, floods have become a frequent occurrence in the area for several months a year. From January to…
SLEMAN, Indonesia — A decade ago, Suyono’s neighbors found his antics collecting the goat and quail droppings outside his home verging on the strange. Today, it’s become the norm in…
CHITWAN, Nepal — One of Nepal’s biggest cities on the northwestern fringes of Chitwan National Park has been dumping its municipal waste in a forest that serves as an international…
NAIROBI ― Introduced to East Africa in 1891, in Zanzibar, to deal with domestic food waste, Indian house crows are now wreaking havoc in Kenya: killing native small birds, likely…
ALIAĞA, Türkiye — Every day, as dusk settles over the Aegean Sea, small vans ferrying workers homeward bustle in and out of Aliağa, a town nestled against lush, forested hills…
When eight-year-old Samin developed a fever a few days ago, his parents thought it was the seasonal flu. However, in two days, his condition worsened as he began to complain…
‘Out of sight, out of mind’ is a typical approach to waste and is one of the main reasons why the waste trade persists. The world discovered that toxic waste…
Mycologists believe the solution to some of our biggest pollution issues is under our feet. Humble fungi are now being used as meat alternatives, eco-friendly leather and to help break…
The newly formed government in Bangladesh is about to implement the existing law regarding plastic usage by strictly banning — initially — single-use plastic and, gradually, all possible plastic uses.…
Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy, a waste worker from Binh Dinh, Vietnam, has worked in the waste collection industry for four decades. She has spent every day at the landfill –…
Plastic waste is a global problem, and the food sector is one of its main drivers. It only takes a quick visit to a supermarket to realize this: With the…
With a final round of negotiations on a global plastics treaty set to take place later this year in Busan, South Korea, an autopsy is premature, especially with the dynamics…
In Bangladesh, regular cycles of heat and rain have long cultivated dense populations of insects, and, by extension, the diseases they carry. Dengue fever was first confirmed in Bangladesh 60…
Driven to protect the planet one child, one tree and one recycled piece of plastic at a time, environmental advocate Doyinsola Ogunye is helping children, youth and women in Nigeria…
A disagreement between the Bangladesh government and the contractor China Machinery and Engineering Corp. (CMEC) has apparently stalled the implementation of the first-ever waste-to-power project in Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. This…
The Caribbean Basin is drowning in waste, especially plastic trash that’s contaminating rivers and the surrounding sea.
Biological solutions offer hope for tackling human-caused pollution — but only if government and industry significantly support getting those solutions out of the lab and into the real world.
PULAU SERIBU, Indonesia — Mustaghfirin unmoors his boat every day in the Thousand Islands archipelago, two hours’ sailing from the Jakarta coast, and sets off into a sea filled with…
As negotiators meet this week for the fourth round of global plastics treaty talks, scientists warn that both plant-based and petroleum-based plastics are toxic, with both needing tough regulation to protect public health.
Imagine a mother in a rural village drawing water from a well with her pitcher. This seemingly ordinary water holds her family's future — for drinking, cooking and bathing. But…
Nitrogen pollution from agriculture and human waste, along with other pollutants including plastics, could make clean water scarce in many watersheds worldwide, potentially contributing to declines in public health.
Historically, the leather industry has created large amounts of pollution and waste, while using huge amounts of water. But some companies are cleaning up their act, even as synthetic and biobased alternatives multiply.
BOGOR, Indonesia — At the age of 60, Siti Salamah started making changes at her family home in the city of Bogor, just south of Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital. “We always…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government’s freedom-of-information clearinghouse has ordered state-owned electricity utility PLN to disclose emissions data for some of the country’s biggest coal-fired power plants. The decision by the…