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The Nevada National Security Site

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Think negligent pollution and masking the CO2 emissions of your factory are bad? This desert land in Nevada has endured more than 900 nuclear detonations at the hands of the US government. The testing ground – from which the iconic “mushroom cloud” gained prominence – was always a pretty barren wasteland; now it’s a barren wasteland with extremely high levels of radiation (above and below ground) which are carried on the wind to southern Utah. It is a point of controversy as to whether or not the testing is actually having a significant effect on the health of those in nearby areas; however it’s beyond doubt that the plains of Nevada themselves have been blasted, burned, scorched and razed beyond any hope of life. The Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) is located among 1,300 square miles of desert in the American Southwest. The NNSS is the location of decades of nuclear testing including the Yucca Flats, dubbed “the most bombed place on Earth.” Unsurprisingly, given this concent
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Wittenoom, Australia

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Asbestos used to be valuable commodity but, as we know, it also brings with it a host of dangerous illnesses. Wittenoom was once home to the only blue asbestos mines in Australia and they shipped over 150,000 tons of the toxic material across the world when productive. Eventually the health hazards became a priority and the town was abandoned; I mean properly abandoned. With six confirmed inhabitants today, even those now decades removed from the small settlement are being attacked by fatal illnesses such as mesothelioma, a brutal cancer which affects the lining of the lungs and chest wall. Asbestos was used in gardens, school and just about anywhere they could find a use for it. The end result is that everyone living there was invariably exposed to its brutal toxicity and it’s estimated that 25% of people living there will eventually die because of it sooner or later. Much like the Pennsylvania ghost town, Wittenoom was once a mining town and has been all but completely abandoned.
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Norilsk, Russia

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Want a description of what absolute pollution looks like? In Norilsk, the snowfall is literally black. As the largest heavy metal smelting city in the world, it emits almost unfathomable amounts of copper and nickel oxide as well as sulphur dioxide. What that boils down to is an inhospitable zone where the air tastes like sulphur, chronic respiratory and pulmonary diseases abound and the average life expectancy is a decade short of the national average. While death rates are reputedly on the decline, Norilsk is still a veritable death-trap; somewhat fitting for a place which originally served as a Siberian slave labour camp. Isolated and hidden north of the Arctic Circle, there isn’t a living tree within 30 miles of this Russian city.
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Centralia, Pennsylvania

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We love apocalypse stories: ghost towns, barren streets, and that air of absolute mystery makes us feel giddy and excited. Centralia is a real-world ghost town and it’s about as close to a literal hell on Earth as you’re likely to find. A coal-mining powerhouse in its heyday, a ferocious fire tore the town apart and started a chain-reaction underground which has burned ever since. Poisonous smoke filters up through the ground to this day but has long since killed of any sign of plant life on the surface. The toxic carbon monoxide that flooded the town started an evacuation of the entire population and has left nothing but a barren wasteland in its wake. Home now only to graffiti and occasional daredevil sightseers, Centralia is one of the most deadly places on earth. To this day the ground is still warm to the touch, even in the depths of winter… Barring Chernobyl, Centralia is probably the most famous of these "waste lands," and proves just as interesting. Centralia was
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Dzerzhinsk, Russia

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With an average life expectancy of just over 40 years old, Dzerzhinsk has gained a despicable renown as one of the most heavily polluted cities in the entire world. For over 70 years, this near cesspit was subject to the dumping of 300,000 tons of chemical waste, including some of the most dangerous neurotoxins in existence. Dioxin is effectively a highly toxic organic pollutant which, in 2007, infected some drinking water in Dzerzhinsk to such a degree that levels were found to be 17 million times above the safe limit. With landfills leaking toxic waste into nearby water supplies and a birth rate less than half the death rate in 2003, Dzerzhinsk is an abominable wasteland where, simply put, you don’t go.
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Kalimantan, Indonesia

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Mercury poisoning is barbaric; it can cause formication, tachycardia, and even have your skin shred itself from your body. In can cause sensory impairment and the effects on younger children are even more varied. Kalimantan is a gold-mining hotspot on Borneo where most of the ore is mixed with mercury. Local smelters buy the newly-mined gold and burn off the mercury to leave the pure gold behind. However, by doing this in their own homes, therefore trapping the extremely poisonous gas inside, they invariably cause serious damage their own health. The gold mining industry here provides a livelihood for thousands of people on the island but decades of persistent mining and interaction with mercury has poisoned a great number of the population. Such a dense concentration of mercury will cause irreparable damage to the health of any who live in that area; making it a terribly hazardous environment.
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Hazaribagh, Bangladesh

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Renowned for its health resort, Hazaribagh is also notorious as a colossal pollutant of the Buriganga River, into which its 270 tanneries unceremoniously dump thousands of tons of horrifically toxic waste every single day. Most workers in these outdated, crude factories have their homes constructed close to water sources (streams, canals, etc.) which are now immutably infested with hexavalent chromium, a powerful carcinogenic: an agent directly involved with causing cancer. The extreme disregard for safe waste-disposal/working practice – like leather recyclers who simply burn leather scraps and release the toxic fumes into the atmosphere – are contaminating the air and water of Hazaribagh and risking the livelihood of every single person who calls that wasteland home.
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