May 8, 2026

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South Africa Is Home To the Most Polluted Region On Earth. Can It Be Improved? – Bloomberg

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Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas, Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information, news and insight around the world
Americas+1 212 318 2000
EMEA+44 20 7330 7500
Asia Pacific+65 6212 1000
A street vendor sells fruit near the Sasol plant in Sasolburg, part of the region known as the Vaal Triangle, in South Africa, on Jan. 18.
The air in one South African industrial region is so contaminated that a town regularly registers the highest levels of harmful particulate emissions on the planet.
Just 30 miles from Johannesburg, in a South African region known as the Vaal Triangle, 1.7 million people are living in a crossfire of some of the most dangerous pollution on Earth.
From the highway into Vanderbijlpark, you can see the heavy veil of smoke that cloaks Africa’s biggest steel mill. To the southeast, near the town of Vereeniging, the Lethabo coal power plant, whose name means “happiness,” joylessly belches out ash and toxic sulfur dioxide. Further south, outside a petrochemicals plant in Sasolburg, an adjacent neighborhood regularly reeks of rotten eggs from hydrogen sulfide in the air.

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