20 million Americans mobilized on April 22, 1970; 30 years later, that number was up to 200 million citizens of the Earth. What was the cause that brought these people together? The desire to make the Earth a better place.
Earth Day is not a holiday, but an annual event dedicated to demonstrating support for environmental action. Consider the math: in many Western countries, each person generates 4.3lb (1.95kg) of waste every day, up from 2.7 (1.2kg) in 1960. There are now 7.3 billion people in the world; with the current population growth rate of 1.1%, this means that in roughly 64 years, the Earth's population will be almost 15 billion.
That's a lot of garbage. Let's do our part, avoid the mistakes of the past, and keep our planet clean! If you have an image of pollution in our neighborhood, add a photo to this list - and then help clean it up!
#1 Tortoise Trapped By Plastic
#2 Koala Lost Her Home
#3 Turtle Trapped In Plastic Waste Couldn't Grow
#4 Bird In Oil Spill
#5 Albatross Killed By Excessive Plastic Ingestion In Midway Islands (North Pacific)
#6 Suffering Seal Not Safe In Its Own Habitat
#7 Stork Trapped In Plastic
#8 Oiled Penguins
#9 He Spends Each Morning Looking For Recyclable Plastic That He Can Sell For 35 Cents Per Kilo To Help His Family
#10 Surfing On A Wave Full Of Trash In Java (Indonesia), The World’s Most Populated Island
#11 Fake Hong Kong Skyline For Tourists
#12 Seal's Nose Trapped In Plastic Waste
#13 Bird In Oil Spill
#14 Boy Swimming In Polluted Water In India
#15 Child Drinks Water From Stream In Fuyuan County, Yunnan Province
#16 Girl Walks Through Smog In Beijing, Where Small-Particle Pollution Is 40 Times Over International Safety Standard
#17 Ken River Oil Field, California (USA) – Exploited Since 1899
#18 Worker Cleans Away Dead Fish At A Lake In Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province
#19 Mexico City Landscape, 20 Million Inhabitants
#20 Child Swims In A Polluted Reservoir, Pingba
#21 Landscape Full Of Trash In Bangladesh
#22 Man Cleans Up Oil Spill In Dalian Port, Liaoning
#23 Residents Look At A Heavily Polluted River, Zhugao, Sichuan Province
#24 Landfill In Accra (Ghana). Our Electronic Rubbish Usually Ends Up In Third-world Countries
#25 Terrible Pollution In India's Rivers
#26 Plastic Sandals Found On Beaches In Raja Ampat
#27 A Family Walks On A Garbage-strewn Beach In Mumbai
#28 A River In The Suburbs Of Mumbai.
#29 Plastic Kochin, India
#30 Open Dumping In The Streets Of New Delhi, India
#31 Taken At A Tourist Spot In India - 2011
#32 Indonesian Forest Transformed Into Palm Plantation
#33 Part Of The Amazonian Jungle In Brazil, Burnt Down To Be “Repurposed”
