Wincanton recycling plant in Billingham ,Teeside, checks all the old fridges and washing machines before they are recycled.

Indian local boy wade through the pollution and floating debris left after the immersion of hundreds of idols of Hindu goddess Durga into the River Yamuna in New Delhi, India Monday 02 October 2006. The Hindu Festival of Durga Puja, celebrates the killing of a demon king by the goddess ended today with colorful celebrations all over the country. Every autumn, Bengalis all over the world celebrate her festival which not only represents the victory of good over evil, but is also a celebration of female power.

Chinese migrant workers sort through industrial and household waste at a recycling center in Beijing, China, 22 January 2008. In an attempt to clean up the nation’s air, soil and water China is attempting to improve recycling of household waste as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions and industrial pollution. Environmental degradation has been labeled by government officials a leading obstacle to continued economic growth. China is considering adopting a new environment tax that will force companies to pay in accordance with how much pollution they discharge, reports state media.

An Indian boy searches for coins in the polluted waters of the Yamuna River in New Delhi on April 4, 2008. The national capital is a major culprit in the pollution of the Yamuna, accounting for about 79 per cent of the total waste water that is poured into the river by the major towns along its banks. Despite the Indian government spending millions on trying to clean up the river, most of it going to waste-treatment stations, pollution levels continue to rise.

A file picture dated 11 July 2007 shows a man collecting dead fish in Guanqiao Lake in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province, which died due to the polluted lake water and the sizzling weather in the city. On 22 April 2008, Earth Day is celebrated in many countries to inspire awareness of and appreciation for the earth’s environment.

Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers remove algae from a beach near the Olympic Sailing Centre in the city of Qingdao on July 5, 2008. Olympic sailors are not normally afraid of the water, but athletes and coaches say the pollution at the Olympic sailing course in Qingdao makes them very wary of getting wet. The bright green algae that has choked parts of the Olympic course has drawn an unwelcome spotlight on China’s environmental record and prompted an ongoing cleanup effort by more than 10,000 people, backed by boats, bulldozers and the military.

View of a graffiti of a woman reading a book in the walls surrounding the Mapocho river in Santiago on August 21, 2008. The Mapocho river, at present gravely polluted, is being cleansed through an innovative project which includes a 28,5 km long underground tunnel where the sewage will be re-directed.

A polluted creek covered with trash in Manila, Philippines on 01 March 2009. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources reported in 2008 that the Philippines hosts 50 major polluted rivers, with a majority of pollutants coming from domestic waste.

Thousands of scrapped taxis are abandoned at a yard in the center of Chongqing city on March 4, 2009. Traffic congestion and pollution have worsened dramatically in Chinese cities as the country’s long-running economic expansion has allowed increasing numbers of consumers to make big-ticket purchases such as cars.

Indian scavengers look for coins and other valuable items from among the offerings of devotees in the Ganges at Varanasi on April 5, 2009. More than 400 million people live along the Ganges River. An estimated 2,000,000 persons ritually bathe daily in the river, which is considered holy by Hindus. In the Hindu religion it is said to flow from the lotus feet of Vishnu (for Vaisnava devotees) or the hair of Shiva (for Saivites). While the Ganges may be considered holy, there are some problems associated with the ecology. It is filled with chemical wastes, sewage and even the remains of human and animal corpses which carry major health risks by either direct bathing in the water (e.g.: Bilharziasis infection), or by drinking (the Fecal-oral route).

A Chinese woman and her child walk along a street during a sandstorm in Lanzhou, north China’s Gansu province on April 23, 2009. Air pollution in China’s cities remains very serious, state media quoted a minister as saying, amid an ongoing battle to clean up the skies in the world’s largest coal-consuming nation.

Kosovo albanians work at an open coal mine near the town of Obilic on April 24, 2009. Air pollution in Pristina has passed all legal norms of environmental pollution regulations. While in the world’s developed countries air pollution is permitted to pass its limits only 18 times during a year, Pristina reaches this limit within three months. Experts at the Institute for Public Health warn that this pollution factor is decreasing people’s life expectancy.

A worker washing dead fish remains at a Meat and Bone Meal factory in Dhaka. MBM is animal feed manufactured from abattoir waste and animal carcasses. Following the BSE (Mad Cow Disease) crisis, meat and bone meal been illegal as animal feed in Europe since January 1st, 2001. This is not the case in Bangladesh where the practice is still widespread.

Volunteers try to clear a dam which is filled with discarded plastic bottles and other garbage, blocking Vacha Dam, near the town of Krichim on April 25, 2009.

A cow grazing amidst the piles of rubbish in Dhaka. With over 8000 slums, thousands of people work everyday in the polluted environment of Bangladesh’s capital. The city is known to have the 2nd most polluted water supply in the world, contaminated by industrial waste and human excrement. The local authorities in Dhaka do not consider waste disposal a priority and as a result, rubbish accumulates in large piles around the city before it is finally removed.