Subscribe to our channel! rupt.ly/subscribe The residents of Baghdad’s southeastern neighbourhoods have been combating choking clouds of smoke from burning rubbish and inefficient factories, as footage from Saturday demonstrates.
“[The rubbish] started accumulating after 2003. Our suffering started after that date because of burning trash over here,” said a resident of Al Jadeeda neighbourhood who appealed to the Iraqi government and the UN to solve the rubbish crisis.
The lack of formal waste management and the proximity to landfills and refineries have cloaked Baghdad’s Zaafaraniya slums and Al Jadeeda neighbourhoods in a thick cloud of toxic gas.
According to the World Health Organisation, 500,00 people are estimated to die in the Eastern Mediterranean Region due to air pollution each year, with one of the five main sources of air pollution being burning rubbish in the open as well as waste in landfills.
The UN estimates that around 40 percent of the world’s rubbish is burnt in the open, releasing harmful dioxins and fine particulate matter in the process, in addition to greenhouse gases like methane.
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