Pollution | Allianz Knowledge

Petro-Canada's Edmonton Refinery and Distribution Centre glows at dusk in Edmonton, Canada / Credits: Reuters

European Patent Office Video: Recycling batteries / Credits: European Patent Office

Revolutionary oil skimmer in action at the Oil Cleanup X Challenge: Its disks plough through ... / Credits: Elastec

Environment A historical look at pollution worldwide more
Environment: Video How to recycle batteries more
Environment: Interview How oil skimmers clean up disaster spills more

Greenpeace activists stage a protest against deforestation near a Brazil nut tree in the Amazon ... / Credits: Reuters

Environment Ecocide: a crime against peace Only by prosecuting mass environmental destruction alongside genocide and war ... more

Allianz Knowledge on Environment: A journalist takes a sample of the red polluted water in the Jianhe River in Luoyang, Henan province December 13, 2011. According to local media, the sources of the pollution were two illegal chemical plants discharging their production waste water into the rain sewer pipes.

Allianz Knowledge on Environment: The China Central Television building is seen in haze in Beijing, January 2013. Chinese media are giving prominent coverage to the historically high level of air pollution. Air quality in Beijing has been far above hazardous levels, reaching 755 or higher according to an index known as PM2.5. The World Health Organisation recommends a daily level of no more than 20 for PM2.5, which measures particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers.

Allianz Knowledge on Environment: Using an IKEA perforated garbage can, moped helmet, fighter-pilot breathing mask, wheel-powered generator and home air filtration system, Beijing-based artist Matt Hope built a "breathing bicycle" as a way of protecting himself from air pollution. While pedalling, electricity is generated for the power to activate the system to filter out haze and provide the rider with clean air, local media reported.

Allianz Knowledge on Environment: A group of expatriates walk along the Bund as they distribute face masks to pedestrians to raise awareness of air pollution in downtown Shanghai January 24, 2013.

Allianz Knowledge on Environment: A garbage collector looks for recyclable waste at a garbage dump site in Taiyuan, Shanxi province. China is currently producing 250 million tons of household waste annually, and according to the World Bank China will create over 533 million tons of waste by 2030, yet overall recycling levels are still low. The country has begun to incinerate some of its waste, a solution which creates yet another set of environmental problems.

Allianz Knowledge on Environment: A man smokes at a pond filled with dead fish on the outskirts of Wuhan, central China's Hubei province, June 4, 2007. About 125,000kg of fish died in a three-day period due to water pollution, local media reported.

Allianz Knowledge on Environment: Household garbage and construction waste are placed next to a residential area in Beijing March 22, 2013. China will spend 100 billion yuan ($16 billion) over three years to deal with Beijing's pollution reported an official Chinese newspaper, as the government tries to defuse mounting public anger over environmental degradation.

Allianz Knowledge on Environment: Domestic sewage flows to the Wenyuhe River through a dry riverbed on the outskirts of Beijing March 24, 2013. According to a government report cited by China Daily and reported by the International Herald Tribune, According to an governmental report cited by China Daily on Tuesday, three-fourths of the industrial wastewater and domestic sewage that was generated in China's Guangdong province in 2011 was dumped directly into local rivers.

Allianz Knowledge on Environment: A resident throws a bag of household garbage into an open garbage room, where it will be burned, beside a road at a village in Beijing March 24, 2013. It has been reported that China aims to incinerate 30% of its solid waste by 2030.

Allianz Knowledge on Environment: A villager carries buckets of water from a white polluted stream which is used for his daily drinking water, in Dongchuan district of Kunming, Yunnan province, March 20, 2013. According to local media, the sources of the pollution are production waste water discharged by nearby mining industries as the villagers living around have to use the polluted water for field irrigation and even drinking.

Environment China grapples with pollution As its industrialization continues, China is struggling to control its pollution levels ... more

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Environment: Interview Carbon targets: Scotland the brave Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond, a renowned horseracing tipster, is ... more

An overcrowded train approaches a station in Dhaka.

A rickshaw puller in a flooded street in Kolkata.

An aerial view of Sao Paulo

A cottage on top of the Ericsson Arena in Stockholm.

South Korean football fans watch a match on a screen in Seoul.

A view of the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona.

A noh actor performs in a Tokyo street at night.

An early morning smog over Cape Town.

A sculpture shows a car being picked up from London's streets.

The New York city subway station for Wall Street.

A rainbow rises over the Bangkok skyline after a rainstorm.

A woman walks along the edge of Lake Ontario in Toronto.

A bolt of lightning hits the Oriental Pearly Tower in Shanghai.

A Formula One race car parades through the streets of Stuttgart.

A view of Sydney Harbour and the Opera House.

A suburban street in Denver.

A container ship unloading in Rotterdam port.

Environment What's your city's carbon footprint? The International Institute of Environment and Development (IIED) has compared per capita ... more

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Cap-and-trade applies caps on the amount of carbon people can pump into the atmosphere. / Credits: Getty

Environment: Interview Do carbon markets really help the environment? Does cap-and-trade actually reduce emissions? Absolutely, insists European ... more

Environment E-waste haunts the digital age Now that computers, TVs, and mobile phones are outdated after only a couple of ... more

Emissions trading - a market-based mechanism to achieve climate protection at the lowest possible ... / Credits: Reuters

Environment Emissions trading - A glossary Explaining the terminology and political milestones of International Emissions ... more

A dead albatross chick with its stomach full of plastic debris.

Captain Charles Moore holds a sample of Pacific Ocean water full of plastic junk.

A map of the North Pacific Gyre.

A discarded fishing net floats in the Pacific Ocean.

A plastic bottle top makes a home for a crab.

A school of fish near the surface of the ocean.

A plastic briefcase fished from the Pacific Ocean garbage patch.

Junk beach on southern Hawaii.

A tide of plastic garbage washes up the Los Angeles River.

Environment Pollution in the Pacific - A watery garbage patch See the sorry state of the world’s biggest garbage dump, the Pacific Ocean. more

"In the future, when we list the fundamental properties of ocean water, we will have to include ... / Credits: Matt Cramer for Algalita Marine Research Foundation

Environment: Interview Water pollution: Plastics poisoning the Pacific Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, on his 2009 ... more

A worker checks a gas pipeline in an Indonesian landfill site

Farm manager Hugo Garcia takes water samples near a bio-digester

A woman winnows grain near a gas flare in Nigeria.

A long distance pipeline in Alaska

A Russian coal miner walks towards the entrance of a mine.

A worker at a Thai wastewater treatment plant

A rice farmer and her child in a paddy field

A woman covers her mouth while walking behind a bus belching exhaust fumes

A man on a bicycle protests against off-road vehicles

An Afghan worker patches up a smoking brick kiln

Modern and traditional coking ovens

A Chinese farmer burns agricultural waste

An Eritrean woman uses her new fuel efficient mogogo stove

A prison warden watches prisoners work on biogas stoves in Rwanda

Environment Easy ways to protect climate, health and crops Scientists have identified 14 simple, inexpensive ways to reduce global warming, slash ... more

Environment Reduce pollution It’s easy to reduce your own negative impact on the environment. Here's how you ... more

Julie Aasberg, AGCS: 'This will be a significant insurance loss of more than a billion dollars and ... / Credits: Reuters

Environment: Interview Managing offshore oil risks Julia Aasberg, offshore energy specialist at Allianz Global Corporate & ... more

Flocks of shoreline birds inhabit Raccoon Island, one of several barrier islands threatened by coastal erosion and oil exploration, southwest of Houma, Louisiana.

Fireboat crews struggle to contain the blaze on the the Deepwater Horizon.

A still from a BP video of the leaking well.

A diagram of the relief well drilling plan.

Oil booms in Redfish Bay, Louisiana, where the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico.

An exhausted oil-drenched pelican.

A wildlife rehabilitator and a volunteer clean oil off a pelican.

A worker scrapes oil from a once white, sandy beach in Port Fourchon, Louisiana.

Kevin Costner and partners have been developing technology to separate oil from water.

Various vessels involved in the Deepwater Horizon cleanup operation.

The world’s largest skimming vessel, called A Whale.

An employee inspects white shrimp along a conveyor belt at C.F. Gollott & Son Seafood in D'Iberville, Mississippi.

BP CEO Tony Hayward looks on as crew members clean up a beach in Louisiana.

Protesters at a BP gas station in California.

Oil surrounds marshland in Louisiana.

Oil slicks spread across the ocean.

Environment Gulf of Mexico oil spill - Causes and effects When the Deepwater Horizon oil platform exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico, oil ... more

The Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple, built with more than a million glass bottles.

The Miele space station is actually built of discarded washing machines.

A child plays inside the old blades of a wind turbine.

A three-bedroom home made from four old shipping containers in Sydney.

Helton da Silva sits inside a house that slum children helped build out of 10,000 plastic soda bottles.

The Recycloop project uses old sinks both as decorative outer walls and a rainwater reservoir.

Curved shoe shelves are made of car windscreens.

The Duchi shoe fitting area is made of 1500 wood panels, waste material from a window maker .

PVC cable reels, converted into the Cilly modular storage system.

This modular office is made of discarded window frames.

Environment Incredible buildings made from recycled materials See some amazing buildings and interiors made from recycled materials such as the washing ... more

Oil from a leaking pipeline burns in a swamp area of the Niger Delta in Nigeria. Nigeria is one of ... / Credits: Reuters

Environment: Interview Pollution pandemic: cleaning up in the developing world Pollution is among the biggest health hazards in the developing world. Clean-up ... more

A process operator shows a handful of corn at the GreenField Ethanol plant in Chatham, Ontario / Credits: Reuters

Environment: Interview Do biofuels damage food supplies? Terri Raney, senior economist at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the ... more

A flexible CO2-tube at the mini coal power plant "Schwarze Pumpe" in Spremberg, Germany. The ... / Credits: Reuters

Environment Carbon sequestration - How to clean coal Renewable energies won’t be able to fully substitute fossil fuels for years to ... more

The hydropower plant Isar 1 positioned on the River Isar that flows through Munich. / Credits: SWM

Environment: Interview Power to the people, from the people The German city of Munich powers its metro, trams and all its households with ... more

Bangladeshi women process used polythene papers by burning them on the bank of the river Buriganga ... / Credits: Reuters

Environment Reduce, reuse, recycle - Save our resources Waste is threathening to choke our planet. But if used properly it could help ... more

Cap-and-Trade city Tokyo / Credits: Reuters

Environment: Interview Japan's cap-and-trade program for carbon emissions Tokyo has become the first cap-and-trade city. Tokyo Government director of ... more

Allianz makes strenuous efforts to cut down on waste by recycling and reusing. / Credits: Allianz

Environment: Interview How Allianz cuts waste Allianz has successfully encouraged employees in the City of London to recycle ... more

A man walks through bundles of bottles waiting to be recycled at the Closed Loop recycling plant in ... / Credits: Reuters

Environment: Interview Taking aim at the UK's rubbish problem The recession has cut waste in the UK more than anything else since the Second ... more

Waste is the scourge of mankind, but it can also be a great resource. Rag pickers make a living of ... / Credits: Reuters

Environment: Interview Saving waste: The lives of India's rag pickers The millions of rag pickers that search for recyclable garbage keep India’s ... more

A boy looks for recyclable materials on a beach in Mumbai

A man washes in the polluted Yamuna river in India.

A Mumbai beach covered in plastic waste.

An Indian boy collects plastic bags for recycling.

A boy plays in a garbage dump.

A burning garbage dump in New Delhi.

An automobile recycling shop in Mumbai.

The child actor Shahrukh Munshi who starred in Slumdog Millionaire.

Environment India's massive waste problem India prospers, but its streets and rivers are choking on evermore garbage. more