Dead fish cover the bottom of the dried-up Kakhovka Reservoir after recent catastrophic destruction of the Kakhovka dam near Kherson, Ukraine, Sunday, June 18, 2023. (Photo by Mstyslav Chernov/AP Photo)





In this grab taken from video, oil from a spill pollutes the Okuku river, in Ogoniland, Nigeria, June 16, 2023. An oil spill at a Shell facility in Nigeria has contaminated farmland and a river. It's upended livelihoods in the fishing and farming communities of part of the Niger Delta, which has long endured environmental pollution caused by the oil industry. (Photo by AP Photo/Stringer)





View of an oil-stained bird on the shore of a contaminated lake in Maracaibo, Venezuela on June 22, 2023. The Azul Ambientalistas foundation denounced on 22 June the “state of emergency” in which the Maracaibo Lake, the largest in Venezuela, finds itself, due to oil spills that, it assured, are affecting the lake economy and the health of the people. (Photo by Henry Chirinos/EPA)





This handout photo taken and released by the 11th Regional Coast Guard Headquarters on June 27, 2023 shows a river dyed red after coolant used in equipment to help with beer-making leaked into the water from the nearby beer brewery in the city of Nago, Okinawa prefecture. (Photo by Handout/The 11th Regional Coast Guard Headquarters via AFP Photo)





Environmental activist Modou Fall, also known as “Plastic Man”, wears his plastic suit in Guediawaye, Dakar, Senegal, 23 June 2023. For more than 15 years, Fall, a former soldier and father of three nicknamed “Plastic Man”, has been on a mission to raise the awareness of his fellow citizens about plastic waste and pollution. Fall is often seen wearing a custom made camouflage suit composed of recycled plastic bags to carry his message across and has become the international face of the fight against plastic waste and pollution in Senegal. According to Fall, 200,000 tons of plastic are collected annually in Senegal but only 9,000 tons are recycled, while the rest is burned and contributes to more environmental pollution. The sign reads “All against the silent killer, the plastic peril”. (Photo by Jérôme Favre/EPA/EFE)





View of the Tiete river covered with toxic foam in Salto, 100km from Sao Paulo, Brazil on July 7, 2023. The Tiete River is 1,100 km long, crossing the state of Sao Paulo, and during the dry season, the sewage that is dumped into the river in the metropolitan region of Sao Paulo forms a toxic foam composed of phosphates and phosphorus present in biodegradable household products such as soap, detergent, soap, toothpaste and shampoo, causing pollution. (Photo by Nelson Almeida/AFP Photo)





Birds swim on the Tiete river covered with toxic foam in Salto, 100km from Sao Paulo, Brazil on July 7, 2023. (Photo by Nelson Almeida/AFP Photo)





A man holds a turtle with its body full of oil, in a community contaminated by oil spills and the proliferation of “verdin” on the waters of Lake Maracaibo, in Zulia state, Venezuela, 12 July 2023. The shores of Lake Maracaibo, the largest in Venezuela, are thick and green, since the accumulation of oil, the product of numerous spills, and the proliferation of a solid bacterium in the area have created a swamp, whose putrefaction affects the health and economy of the locals. The situation is, according to residents and environmentalists, an emergency, something that the government ruled out, although it admitted that there is a problem due to the proliferation of the bacteria called “verdin“, without mentioning the oil spills, but assured that this does not affect the “excellent conditions” in which the estuary is located. (Photo by Henry Chirinos/EPA)





A Double-crested Cormorant spreads its wings on July 21, 2023, on the Chester River, a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay, near Crosby, Maryland. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) released its 2022 State of the Bay report in January 2023, a biennial evaluation grading the Bay and its watershed, reporting the Bay as a D+, unchanged from the 2020 score. Efforts to restore the Bay are struggling to reduce agricultural pollution. Urban and suburban polluted runoff is increasing amid inconsistent enforcement by government agencies, new development, and climate change. (Photo by Jim Watson/AFP Photo)





Muddy plastic bottles have flowed downstream and become lodged against fallen trees and within the dense foliage in Tisza River near Tiszaroff, Hungary, Tuesday, August 1, 2023. Life-jacketed rivergoers of all ages pile into dozens of canoes to scour Hungary’s second-largest river for such trash. (Photo by Denes Erdos/AP Photo)





Garbage litters the shore of Los Delfines beach, in the Ventanilla district of Callao, Peru, Wednesday, August 2, 2023. Residents are asking authorities to remove the garbage polluting the beach where the water is brown from contamination. (Photo by Martin Mejia/AP Photo)





A young green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) with a size of 12 cm is covered, in oil after being found in Nai Yang beach after the presence of oil in several beaches on the northwest coast of Phuket, Thailand on August 4, 2023. (Photo by Phuket Marine Biological Center/Handout via Reuters)





A girl smiles while eyeing the camera as she stands alongside the Sao Joaquim canal, its banks and water littered with garbage, in the Barreiro neighborhood of Belem, Brazil, Wednesday, August 9, 2023. According to the Instituto Trata Brasil, specializing in research of basic sanitation and water protection, the city of Belem, host of the Amazon Summit, has one of the worst sanitation rates in Brazil, with a sewage system available to only 17.1 % of the population. (Photo by Paulo Santos/AP Photo)





Oil and plastic bottles litter a river polluted by a nearby oil field in the countryside of Rmeilan, in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province on August 14, 2023. (Photo by Delil Souleiman/AFP Photo)





Boat pilot Paulo Monteiro da Cruz observes dead fish at Piranha lake, which has been affected by the drought of the Solimoes River, in Manacapuru, state of Amazonas, Brazil on September 27, 2023. (Photo by Bruno Kelly/Reuters)