32 Filthy Facts About Pollution You’ll Wanna Know

6,000 years ago, extensive copper mining operations in North America polluted the Great Lakes region. Isle Royale National Park in the State of Michigan, features high levels of copper, lead, and potassium in the ancient sediments.

27. One-third of humanity (including 60% of Europeans and 80% of North Americans) live in such light-polluted areas that the Milky Way is not visible at night.

28. Ships that were constructed before 1945 are the primary source of steel which are not contaminated with radioactive nuclides. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki along with nuclear tests and disasters have polluted the earth’s atmosphere with nuclear particles.

29. In the 1970s, the pH of rain samples from parts of New York was at 3.3 due to pollution from the rust belt, the same acidity as grapefruit juice. The default pH of rain is 5.1. This prompted the creation of the term “Acid Rain.”

30. Companies are known to strategically place facilities where the wind will carry pollution across the state line or sometimes even country lines.

Violent crime in the US and Europe was at its highest in areas with the most lead pollution. Violent crime peaked 20 years after lead additives in petrol and paint were banned, before declining thereafter.

32. In 2010 alone, a peer-reviewed study found that reductions in fine particle pollution and ozone pollution achieved by the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 avoided more than 160,000 deaths and prevented 13 million lost workdays.