Formation 1999 President Richard Fuller | Type International NGO Website www.pureearth.org | |
Location New York City, New York | ||
Founded in 1999, the Blacksmith Institute which changed its name to Pure Earth on March 10, 2015, is an international not-for-profit organization that identifies and cleans up pollution, focusing primarily on contaminated sites and soil in developing countries. Over the last decade it has cleaned up 84 sites in 20 countries, focusing on communities where children are most at risk. These communities suffer disproportionately from pollution-related diseases.
Contents
- The GAHP Global Alliance on Health and Pollution
- 2015 report Top Six Toxic Threats
- 2014 report Top Ten Countries Turning The Corner on Toxic Pollution
- 2013 report Top Ten Toxic Threats in 2013 Cleanup Progress and Ongoing Challenges
- 2012 report The Top Ten Sources by Global Burden of Disease
- 2011 report The Top Ten of the Toxic Twenty
- 2010 report Top Six Toxic Threats
- 2009 report 12 Cases of Cleanup and Success
- 2008 report Top Ten Worlds Worst Pollution Problems
- 2006 and 2007 reports Top Ten Worlds Worst Polluted Places
- Also mentioned
- References
In 2014, Blacksmith launched a new initiative – Blacksmith Institute for a Pure Earth – with actor Dev Patel as celebrity ambassador. Patel worked closely with Blacksmith to suggest the new name, and will help support efforts to raise awareness about toxic pollution, an issue he says he first grew aware of after filming in India. Blacksmith will slowly transition to a new name – Pure Earth – in order to broaden awareness of global toxic pollution issues to the general public.
In 2011 Blacksmith received a Green Star Award for its work. In 2010, Blacksmith founder Richard Fuller was profiled in Time magazine's "Power of One" column In 2014, Bloomberg Businessweek chronicled Blacksmith/Pure Earth's growth and work around the world, including a dangerous cleanup of a secret Soviet arms site in Ukraine.
2015 saw the release of the book The Brown Agenda.
Pure Earth has been recognized as one of the USA’s top performing nonprofits.
Blacksmith Institute/Pure Earth is known for its annual World's Worst Polluted Places Reports, The Pollution Blog, and the Blacksmith database, which currently lists 600 polluted sites. This Polluted Places Initiative identifies polluted sites throughout the world by means of an online nomination process.
Blacksmith is currently expanding their database with the Toxics Sites Identification Program, formerly known as Global Inventory Project.
Blacksmith/Pure Earth serves as Secretariat for the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP). In 2015, the GAHP launched the global Commission on Pollution, Health and Development. It is described as an "initiative of The Lancet, the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP), and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, with additional coordination and input from the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank." The Commission aims to quantify the health and economic costs of pollution to give global leaders and policy-makers the justification to act on pollution. The Commission report will be published in early 2017.
The GAHP (Global Alliance on Health and Pollution)
In July 2012, Blacksmith convened a third meeting of world leaders and experts on pollution at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center in Italy. Blacksmith serves as Secretariat for the GAHP, which is supported by the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and UNIDO, among other agencies. Blacksmith began coordinating an international effort to create a global alliance in 2008. The effort was formerly called the Health and Pollution Fund.
2015 report: Top Six Toxic Threats
2014 report: Top Ten Countries Turning The Corner on Toxic Pollution
(Not ranked, listed by region.)
2013 report: Top Ten Toxic Threats in 2013: Cleanup, Progress, and Ongoing Challenges
The World's Worst Polluted Places in 2013 (unranked):
(*included in the original 2006 or 2007 lists)
2012 report: The Top Ten Sources by Global Burden of Disease
2011 report: The Top Ten of the Toxic Twenty
Top Ten Worst Toxic Pollution Problems:
2010 report: Top Six Toxic Threats
The report identifies and quantifies the impacts of the most damaging toxic pollutants. The Top Six Toxic Threats are:
2009 report: 12 Cases of Cleanup and Success
The report lists 10 programs, unranked, as examples of successful efforts to reduce the toll of pollution on human health. It also includes two initiatives with worldwide impact.
2008 report: Top Ten World's Worst Pollution Problems
2006 and 2007 reports: Top Ten World's Worst Polluted Places
As of September 2007, the Institute lists the following as the world's ten most polluted places (in alphabetical order by country):
Also mentioned
The Institute has operated in China since 2002.
In its 2007 report, The World’s Worst Polluted Places issued on September 16, the Blacksmith Institute included Meycauayan and Marilao in Bulacan, Philippines, in the list of the world’s thirty most polluted places in the developing world. It stated: "Industrial waste is haphazardly dumped into the Marilao, Meycauayan, and Obando River system, a source of drinking and agricultural water supplies for the 250,000 people living in and around” the Meycauayan-Marilao area."