The Pictures Of The "Trash Mountains" Coming Out Of South Asia Are Surreal. And So Fucking Disgusting.

Bloomberg - Piles of garbage near South Asian megacities are contributing to some of the world’s strongest and most persistent methane emissions, highlighting a major challenge in the global climate fight.

More clouds of the powerful greenhouse gas — which has 84 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over its first 20 years in the atmosphere — were spotted in India than any other country except for the US during the first half of this year, according to European Space Agency satellite observations analyzed by Kayrros SAS. Pakistan ranked fourth and Bangladesh sixth.

The Ghazipur dump on the outskirts of India’s capital, New Delhi, spewed roughly 2.17 metric tons of methane an hour on March 22, the day a GHGSat satellite passed overhead. The site opened in 1984 and is now one of the world’s most hazardous. Its height fluctuates but in 2019 it stood around 15 stories high. Covering roughly 70 acres, the dump is big enough to accommodate the globe’s largest cricket venue, Narendra Modi Stadium. The landfill is a disease vector that helps spread tuberculosis. Fires periodically ignite due to leaking methane. In 2017, monsoon rains caused a waste landslide that killed two people.

This was making the rounds the other day and I have to be honest, my jaw dropped when I saw in that video just how high these piles of trash were as opposed to the buildings and skylines in the background. 

Imagine living in this shit?

And imagine seeing it and still thinking our planet is going to hell in a handbasket due to no fault of our own? 

So not only is India accounting for the majority of burned fossil fuel emissions -

they're also building entire cities out of rubbish that are pumping 350,000 U.S. cars worth of ozone damaging pollution into the air.

And killing themselves sadly.

They've also got a cigarette butt problem. 

What a wild scene over there.

p.s. - life imitating art imitating life