1 . Around 40 million tonnes of electronic waste, known as e-waste, is produced every year. This includes electrical or electronic equipment that has been discarded. But where does it all go? In the US alone, 100 million mobile phones, 41 million computers and over 20 million televisions are thrown into landfills in a year. Even for standard waste this is a big headache, because any materials that are buried in the ground can’t be easily recovered and recycled. Recycling electronics can save energy and means that less of Earth’s natural resources need to be mined.

Failing to recycle e-waste is extremely damaging the environment due to the nature of the materials used in modern devices. While heavy metals and chemicals improve a device’s safety and user experience, these components become poisonous if they’re not dealt with properly. Your old phones, Gameboys, kettles, microwaves and more can end up in landfills, leaking their harmful contents into the soil, water and air. Not only does this kill wildlife and destroy ecosystems, but the accumulation of poison can impact human health too. As heavy metals and chemicals flow into lakes and rivers, drinking water becomes polluted. These poisons spread through the soil, impacting the health of crops and animals that people also rely on.

In some western countries, e-waste isn’t hidden out of sight in landfills but is burnt in giant, open junkyards. They even ship waste electronics to other countries to deal with, and this often ends up in dumps across Africa and Asia. Workers in these places are exposed to polluted lands and chemical gas.

It is urgent that we should reduce the damaging and unsustainable side of e-waste production. Rare earth metals, some plastics and chemicals can be fed into the next generation of electronics. The steps to proper recycling of e-waste are extensive and need large investment, but more and more countries around the world are turning to e-waste recycling.

2 . Lagos, a big city in Nigeria, has a population of 20 million, and they can produce between 13, 000 and 15, 000 tonnes of waste every day including 2, 250 tonnes of plastic.

Despite a lot of cleaning, Lagos has no proper system to dispose of rubbish, and not having public awareness of pollution brings a huge environmental challenge. Litter gets washed away by the rains and waterways and ends up in mountains of rubbish on the beaches. Light- house Beach is one of the beaches. It stretches for about 100 kilometers along the Atlantic, all the way to neighboring Benin. Lined with palm trees, the beach could be beautiful if it weren’t for all the pollution.

“It is time that we should raise awareness of keeping the environment clean and clean up all the plastic,” says Chioma Chukwura, who helped pick up rubbish on Lighthouse Beach. At the end of a tiring day, 230 large bin bags were put together on the hot sand, filled with dirty plastic.

“Although the job is challenging,a company will come and pick them up tomorrow. All the plastic here will get reused. Sold for $500 a tonne, the plastic could bring $250 million to Lagos each year, and a cleaner environment could promote the development of the city,” says Owoade Yussuf, organiser of the cleanup.

As the volunteers leave at the end of the day,always just 100 meters is clean. “There is still a lot to do. Maybe we need two months, continuously, to get this cleaned up,” says another volunteer. “We have to find a way to prevent the plastic from coming back. After we’ve finished, I’m sure we may still see litter here when we come back.”

On Lighthouse Beach, the problem isn’t just plastic. Destroyed ships also pollute the beach. With that kind of pollution, even an army of volunteers may struggle. However, with more help, they can still make a difference.

3 . There is increasing alarm about the extent of microplastic pollution, which has been found everywhere from Everest to the Arctic. However, it turns out there’s an even smaller and more toxic form of plastic pollution entering remote reaches of the globe. A new study published in Environmental Research found significant quantities of nanoplastics in ice samples from both the North and South Poles.

“Now we know that nanoplastics are transported to these corners of the Earth in these quantities. This indicates that nanoplastics are really a bigger pollution problem than we thought,” study lead author Dusan Materic said in a press release.

Nanoplastics are plastics that are smaller than a micrometer in size. Their small size means they are more difficult to study than microplastics, or plastics between five millimeters and a micrometer. But they may be even more dangerous.

“Nanoplastics are very toxicologically (毒理学地) active compared to, for instance, microplastics, and that’s why this is very important,” Materic said.

Materic and his team used new methods to measure nanoplastic pollution in ice samples from Greenland and Antarctica. They sampled a 14-meter-deep ice core from the Greenland ice cap and sea ice from Antarctica’s McMurdo Sound. They found that there were an average of 13.2 nanograms per milliliter of nanoplastics in the Greenland ice and an average of 52.3 nanograms per milliliter in the Antarctic ice.

But what was even more surprising than the amount of nanoplastics in the remote ice was just how long they had sat there. “In the Greenland core, we see nanoplastic pollution happening all the way from the 1960s. So organisms in that region, despite the lack of the solid evidence, likely all over the world, have been exposed to it for quite some time now,” Materic said.

The study also looked at the types of plastic present in the samples. Half of the Greenland nanoplastics were polyethylene (PE), the kind of plastic used for plastic bags and packaging. A quarter came from tires and a fifth were polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is used for clothing and bottles.

In a study conducted twelve years ago near natural gas wells in New Mexico, researchers found that there were 75% fewer pinon pine seedlings(幼苗) in noisy sites than in quiet     1     . This was most likely due to the noise driving away the scrub jay(灌丛鸦), which plants thousands of pine seeds while     2    (store) them to eat during the winter months. A research team from California Institute of Technology recently returned to the sites to find out whether the pinon pine had recovered     3     time.

    4     companies changed the sites where they used noisy compressors(压缩机) to help produce natural gas, some of the     5    (previous) noisy sites had become quiet. The researchers found that in these areas, there were still fewer seedlings     6    (compare) to sites that didn’t have compressors added to speed up gas extraction. This shows that though the noise was removed before the pinon pine seeds     7    (plant), they still didn’t sprout(发芽).

“The effects of human noise pollution     8    (grow) into the structure of the woodland communities at present,” said biology professor and senior author Clint Francis.     9     we’re seeing now is that     10    (disappear) of the noise doesn’t necessarily immediately result in a recovery of ecological function.

6 . The process of mountaintop removal mining (MTR) has caused permanent damage to Appalachia. Although the law requires that mining companies restore the mountaintops after the mining has been completed, the 1.5 million acres of mountains that have already been removed cannot be regrown, rebuilt, or replaced. The companies do secure the rock formations to prevent erosion and landslides, but their efforts cannot recreate the once-beautiful mountain landscape. Furthermore, while companies are usually cautious about securing the rock formations, they seem less interested in restoring the native plants. MTR operations clear enormous areas of forests; some experts estimate that over 2,000 square miles of forests in the Appalachian region will have been razed by mining companies by the end of this year. Instead of replanting the native trees and shrubs that have been cleared, many companies chose to plant cheap, fast-growing plants.

Environmental threats are not only created in preparing a mountaintop for mining, but they also continue once the coal has been extracted. After the explosion, the excess mountaintop——which miners refer to as “overburden”——is usually dumped into nearby valleys or streams. The overburden contains a variety of poisonous substances, including explosive residue, silica, and coal dust. Over 700 miles of streams in Appalachia have been polluted by this dumping. Although the mining companies have built structures known as “sludge dams” that are intended to contain the runoff, these dams may easily burst or leak, sending thousands of gallons of poisonous chemicals into drinking water.

While the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and other environmental protection bills can theoretically be enforced to protect Appalachia, local lawmakers have been unwilling to take action for fear of upsetting those who believe that the jobs created by MTR are vital to the community. However, instead of bringing jobs and prosperity to poor Appalachian communities, MTR companies actually bring destruction and poverty. MTR does not involve the amount of human labor required by traditional sub surface mining. Despite the poverty. MTR does not involve the amount of human labor required by traditional sub-surface mining. Despite the fact that coal production has increased between 1950 and 2004. the human labor force working in these mines has sharply decreased. In the 1950s, there were approximately 130,000 people employed by the mining companies; by 2004, that number had decreased to 16,00. Moreover, while the coal companies may make enormous profits from MTR, Appalachian communities located near the mines suffer increased rates of kidney cancer, brain cancer, lung cancer, chronic pulmonary disorders and vision problems.