The New York-based Blacksmith Institute, together with Green Cross Switzerland, yesterday released its annual top ten list of the world’s most polluted places (press release). Blacksmith founder Richard Fuller did not mince his words: “These places are the shitholes of these countries.” Time and Reuters have both covered this, with the latter also producing a nice list of the problems and possible solutions at four of the sites.

The list is compiled by a panel of experts who take into account factors like the toxicity of the pollutant and the number of people affected. But it often turns up small cities that you’ve likely never heard of – places located near mines or large factories, where the source of pollution may be the economic centre of the region. People choose to live nearby “simply because they need to be there to be first in line to get the jobs”, the Institute’s Director of Global Operations David Hanrahan told reporters yesterday.

But he also had a few success stories. The Institute participated in a project to clean the mercury from contaminated drinking water near Vladivostok, Russia, where levels were once 40 times above the acceptable limit. For about $50,000, he said, they were able to clean the drinking water of thousands of people.

Here are the ‘winners’ (alphabetically by country as "ranking is not realistic or feasible” says the institute):

Sumgayit, Azerbaijan

Linfen, China

Tianjin, China Tianying, China [Blacksmith alerted us to a mistake in their report – corrected 13/09/07]

Sukinda, India

Vapi, India

La Oroya, Peru

Dzerzhinsk, Russia

Norilsk, Russia

Chernobyl, Ukraine

Kabwe, Zambia

Posted for Heidi Ledford