Mercury and lead both sit on the World Health Organization's list of top 10 chemicals of public health concern. Pure Earth works with partners around the world to sustainably address the root causes of lead pollution and mercury pollution, guided by their commitment to transparency, collaboration, impact measurement, and technical excellence.
We spoke with Angela Bernhardt, VP of communications at Pure Earth, to learn more about the organization's ongoing efforts to fight pollution and their related learning resources, which are now available in the LabXchange library.
Pure Earth is a leading global non-profit environmental health organization dedicated to protecting people and the environment from the harms of toxic pollution. Pure Earth advances its goals by collaborating with public, private, and civil society organizations to implement sustainable, cost-effective interventions with measurable impacts. Pure Earth’s current priority is reducing lead and mercury poisoning in low-income and middle-income countries.
Established in 1999, Pure Earth is a pioneer in developing evidence-based solutions to mercury and lead poisoning and pollution.
Whenever we have team members from other countries visit our headquarters in New York City, they always bring chocolate or treats from their culture. We have had a lot of interesting chocolates including one supposedly made with butterfly milk.
In general, we are excited to introduce students to applied intersection of environmental health and environmental engineering. There is a great need for more professionals with these interdisciplinary skill sets across the world. We hope by learning about Pure Earth’s work, this will inspire students to pursue this field and make a contribution to "Solve Pollution, Save Lives, and Protect the Planet!"
We are quite proud to have won two awards for our short films on our cleanups of severe lead pollution in Bangladesh and Senegal. The stories show the transformational nature of this type of work.
In the U.S., our content is complementary to environmental science high school courses. Instructors can use to bring in a global perspective on the pollution issue. In other countries, students and teachers can use our resources to find pollution and health related data specific to their countries. For example, on our leadpollution.org website, students can search by country and access an overview of what is known about the health, economic, and IQ loss impacts of lead exposure and poisoning in their country.
Science literacy and education is crucial to engage in solving the biggest problems faced in the world. Science education empowers students, and serves as the on ramp to a life path to be engaged in solving some of these challenges, and to make a contribution to the betterment of humanity.
Why did the pollution go to therapy?
Because it had too many toxic relationships!
Explore more of Pure Earth's resources in the LabXchange library:
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