History Main / PollutedWasteland

* ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'': During the Lukari storyline, the PC rediscovers the ruins of Kentar, the planet the Lukari left centuries ago due to disputes with the rest of their species, the Kentari, over environmental pollution. In the interim, Kentar became so polluted that all life died out. The PC later makes FirstContact with the Kentari at their new homeworld New Kentar, which looks rather like ''Film/BladeRunner'''s Los Angeles on account of the Kentari not having learned a thing.

* In ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'', the planet Sullust was never particularly hospitable with large parts of the native live evolving underground. The planet is also extremely rich in natural resources and the local Sullustans are known as great engineers, which made it one of the main manufacturers of starships in the galaxy with pretty much no concerns for natural preservation, as not even the natives wanted to go outside if it could be avoided, and rather lived on space stations when supporting the underground settlements became problematic.

* ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'': The planet Quesh is a toxic hellhole that requires an inoculation to even set foot on the surface. Its primary product is "Quesh venom", an underground substance used in manufacturing combat drugs, but an earthquake released the stuff into the atmosphere. Taris doesn't fare much better; centuries after being [[VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic bombarded from orbit]] it's still barely habitable, with rakghouls running wild and toxic runoff leaking from the ruins of industrial buildings.

To give some perspective, Norlisk by itself produces over 1% of global carbon emissions, and is the eleventh most pouting city on the planet, and at one time was number one. [[note]]It actually may well still be at number one, there is tons of evidence Russia is lying about its carbon output[[/note]] Unlike any in the top ten list, Norlisk does not have any petrochemicals to process nor is it large. Its just uses ''that'' much fuel for its industry.

%%* ''Manga/OnePiece'':
%%** Punk Hazard ends up this way after Caesar Clown unleashes his Shinokuni gas.
%%** It's revealed that [[spoiler:Kaido]] turned the majority of [[spoiler:Wano Country]] into this over the course of merely 20 years.
%%* ''Anime/{{Simoun}}'': The island nation of Argentum is a SF {{anime}} example.

* ''Literature/TheLotusWar': The Fushima Islands'. The local MultipurposeMonoculturedCrop is poisoning the environment. A horrendously poorly-burning fuel is processed from its seeds, its pollen is so thick it colors the sky and contributes to the Greenhouse Effect, and it poisons the soil with its waste products unless [[spoiler:it's fed blood, so all the animals that didn't get eaten got mashed into fertilizer; now that they're out of animals they're using [[HumanResources POW's]]]]. Everyone's addicted to smoking its leaves to boot. Despite this, the local MegaCorp, which worships it, keeps growing vast amounts of it. People in cities have to wear gas masks at all times when outdoors, some making do with rags tied around their faces. Those too poor to afford a proper mask develop ''lung cancer''. The rain is black and causes chemical burns.

* Hugh Howey's ''Literature/{{Wool}}'' has the outside world beyond the silo everyone is living in to be so ruined that to go outside is a death sentence. [[spoiler: Or at least it seems to be...]]

%%* ''Series/PowerRangersRPM'': The machinations of the Venjix Empire has turned pretty much turned the whole world into this.

* ''Franchise/MassEffect'': Tuchanka is a post-nuclear wasteland dotted with ruins and rubble, to the extent that when Grunt gets his first look at his homeworld, his immediate reaction boils down to "''This'' is Tuchanka? Seriously? What a shithole." Of course, the krogan, who believe in TheSpartanWay, ''prefer'' Tuchanka as a hellhole where the air has to be specially filtered by a high-tech purification tower to be breathable, because it ensures they have to be strong to survive.

%%* ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers'':

%%* ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'': In one episode when [[VillainProtagonist Mr. Cat]] manages to TakeOverTheWorld, he actually ''takes steps to ensure'' that this happens to Smileyland.

* ''VideoGame/ZoombinisIslandOdyssey'' is an EdutainmentGame that features this as the resource aspect; the titular Zoombinis arrive at their abandoned homeland and realise that the invaders have removed all the butterflies and destroyed the environment(?). By returning caterpillars, the place gradually returns to its former glory. So, basically, you play through rebuilding an area.

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogCD': Not destroying the robots results in the level you're playing in turning into a BadFuture which is usually a Polluted Wasteland.

* ''VideoGame/JakAndDexter'': In ''VideoGame/JakIIRenegade'' and ''VideoGame/Jak3Wastelander'', the Metal Heads' territory, as well as Haven City itself, is very desolate, polluted, and dangerous.2), It's both a DeathWorld filled with dangerous monsters and polluted to the point it makes any real life environmental trainwrecks look quite pleasant in comparison.

See {{Mordor}} for the Polluted Wasteland's more traditionally fantasy counterpart though it should be noted that the Polluted Wasteland can be caused by magic in fantasy settings too. For more information see ClarkesThirdLaw

%%** ''ComicBook/ArchieComicsSonicTheHedgehog'': The planet [[MirrorUniverse Moebius]] is actually described as a Polluted Wasteland.

* Hugh Howey's ''{{Literature/Wool}}'' has the outside world beyond the silo everyone is living in to be so ruined that to go outside is a death sentence. [[spoiler: Or at least it seems to be...]]

* In ''Videogame/{{Factorio}}'', ''you'' play as the wannabe WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanet villain polluting the planet. Automation equipment used in factories spew out pollution that kills off forests and [[GaiasVengeance agitates]] the local BigCreepyCrawlies. A factory built in a pristine forest will soon turn the green trees into dead husks. Sadly, there is no way to directly dump oil into water sources -- without [[GameMod mods]], at least.

* ''VideoGame/JakAndDexter'': In ''VideoGame/JakIIRenegade'' and ''VideoGame/Jak3Wastelander'', the Metal Heads' territory, as well as Haven City itself, is very desolate, polluted, and dangerous.2), It's both a DeathWorld filled with dangerous monsters and polluted to the point it makes any real life environmental trainwrecks look quite pleasant in comparision.

-->--Mike Polk Jr., "Hastily Made UsefulNotes/{{Cleveland}} Tourism Video, Attempt 2"

[[caption-width-right:350:A Polluted Wasteland [[GaiasLament much to the displeasure of our mother]].]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'': In one episode when [[VillainProtagonist Mr. Cat]] manages to TakeOverTheWorld, he actually ''takes steps to ensure'' that this happens to Smileyland.
* ''WesternAnimation/SonicSatAM'': Under Robotnik's rule, Mobius is plagued with pollution, environmental exploitation and industrialized wastes. Dr. Robotnik actively pollutes Robotropolis and its immediate surroundings because he loves the smell.

-->Mike Polk, "Hastily Made UsefulNotes/{{Cleveland}} Tourism Video, Attempt 2"

->''Come see our river that catches on fire!//

[[folder:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]
* The island nation of Argentum in ''Anime/{{Simoun}}'' is a SF {{anime}} example.

* Polluted Wasteland is seen in the second season of ''Manga/MagicKnightRayearth'': one of the invading countries was a mechanical world that had used up all of their natural resources.
* The Sea of Decay in ''Manga/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind'' played with this. Ultimately subverted in that the poison-laden plant life, which was caused by human industrial and military waste, were the product of the forest trying to cleanse the land, and underneath the jungle was pristine earth. The Tolumekian Empire, meanwhile, plays it straight.
* Punk Hazard ends up this way in ''Manga/OnePiece'', especially after Caesar Clown unleashes his Shinokuni gas.
** Later on, it is revealed that [[spoiler:Kaido]] has turned the majority of [[spoiler:Wano Country]] into this over the course of merely 20 years.

* The planet Apokolips in Franchise/TheDCU's ''ComicBook/NewGods'' series, ruled by ComicBook/{{Darkseid}}.
* The planet [[MirrorUniverse Moebius]] in the ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehog'' comics is actually described as a Polluted Wasteland.
** Also, due to Robotnik's rule, Mobius itself is plagued with pollution in ''WesternAnimation/SonicSatAM''.
** From the different continuity of the British ''ComicBook/SonicTheComic'', the [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Grim Zone]].
* From ''ComicBook/DisneyComics'' "Be Leery Of Lake Eerie" in Walt Disney Comics #655, (April 2005), Huey, Dewey, Louie and the Junior Woodchucks discover a dragon that lives off of Lake Eerie's pollutants, only for the dragon to meet its demise when the rain dilutes the lake to a 98% impure level.
* In ComicBook/{{Trees}}, the alien ‘trees’ cause this with their irregular toxic waste dumps. The comic opens with two of the Rio de Janeiro trees drowning much of the city in steaming acidic sludge.

* Earth as seen by ''WesternAnimation/WallE''. Thanks a lot, Buy 'N' Large...
* In ''WesternAnimation/FernGullyTheLastRainforest'' this is the villain Hexxus's ideal environment, and what he wants to turn Ferngully into. His entire mission is to spread destruction and pollution everywhere because he's literally [[MadeOfEvil made of the stuff]].

* The real world of ''Franchise/TheMatrix'' is depicted this way, and is the result of the war between the Humans and the Machines.
* Ditto, the future world as depicted in the ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'' films.
* In the 2002 adaptation of ''Film/TheTimeMachine2002'', the protagonist sees the BadFuture depicted this way after defeating the Uber Morlock with his time machine.
* In ''Film/BladeRunner'', future Los Angeles is covered in thick smog from pollution, and although it is still a high functioning urban area, it is a horrible place to live. By the time ''Film/BladeRunner2049'' takes place, the entire biosphere has finally died off.
* The world in ''Film/SoylentGreen'' exists on the absolute cusp of becoming one, being so polluted, filthy, and overheated from climate change that things like milk and meat are considered delicacies that only the richest citizens can afford while everyone else is forced to subsist on the titular Soylent products made of soy or krill from the oceans. [[spoiler:Just seeing video footage of the way the world is today is enough to bring the protagonist to tears, and the big reveal is that ocean life is now ''extinct'' and Soylent Green is made out of people.]]

* In Creator/GrahamMcNeill's ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' Literature/{{Ultramarines}} novel ''Dead Sky Black Sun'', Uriel and Pasanius find that a Chaos-warped AfterlifeExpress has carried them into planet Medrengard in the Eye of Terror. Hideous, impossible landscapes haunted by monsters and hold many dead bodies, containing tunnels that can [[DrivenToSuicide drive people to murder and suicide]], and a city of AlienGeometries with [[LightIsNotGood strange light creatures]] and [[MobileMaze impossible to trace routes]], pollutants that come to life as {{Living Shadow}}s and an EvilTowerOfOminousness.
* Giedi Prime, homeworld of House Harkonnen in ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'', has had its environment ravaged by overindustrialization.
* [[spoiler:Chester's Mill]] briefly becomes this in the last few chapters of ''Literature/UnderTheDome,'' when Big Jim Rennie sends members of his new police force to the radio station to collect some of the propane he has been stealing from the town [[spoiler:to run his meth lab]]. Chef panics and [[spoiler:blows up the meth lab, releasing a wave of fire that sweeps down from the old radio station and torches half the town, obscuring the surface of the dome and turning the town into a darkened wasteland with a toxic atmosphere]].
* ''Seattle'' has become this in ''[[Literature/ClockworkCentury Boneshaker]]''. A giant drilling machine released a poisonous gas which blocks out the sun, made the air toxic to breathe, and killed all the plant life and people...or turned them in to zombies. Also there are frequent earthquakes and the small living population is made up of outlaws whose de facto ruler is an evil MadScientist.
* In the SciFi novel ''Literature/{{Malevil}}'', pastoral rural France becomes this following WorldWarIII. The forests charred, the farms and village smashed ''then'' incinerated, [[TheNightThatNeverEnds the sky darkened by ash]], and the overpowering stench of death and smoke.

* In ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'', the planet Sulust was never particularly hospitable with large parts of the native live evolving underground. The planet is also extremely rich in natural resources and the local Sullustans are known as great engineers, which made it one of the main manufacturers of starships in the galaxy with pretty much no concerns for natural preservation, as not even the natives wanted to go outside if it could be avoided, and rather lived on space stations when supporting the underground settlements became problematic.
* The Fushima Islands from ''Literature/TheLotusWar''. The local MultipurposeMonoculturedCrop is poisoning the environment. A horrendously poorly burning fuel is processed from its seeds, its pollen is so thick it colors the sky and contributes to the Greenhouse Effect, and it poisons the soil with its waste products unless [[spoiler:it's fed blood, so all the animals that didn't get eaten got mashed into fertilizer; now that they're out of animals they're using [[HumanResources POW's]]]]. Everyone's addicted to smoking its leaves to boot. Despite this, the local MegaCorp, which worships it, keeps growing vast amounts of it. People in cities have to wear gas masks at all times when outdoors, some making do with rags tied around their faces. Those too poor to afford a proper mask develop ''lung cancer''. The rain is black and causes chemical burns.
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Literature/{{Discworld}}''; the River Ankh is so polluted from two cities dumping their refuse into it that the water occasionally catches fire, and people jumping off the bridges to commit suicide have to break through the crust first. Corpses don't get disposed of in it, they get thrown ''on'' it. Anyone invading from the sea needs gangs of men with shovels so their ships can move up. And so on.

** The planet Skaro, as depicted in "Genesis of the Daleks" and several Expanded Universe media, thanks to a centuries-long war of attrition involving nuclear and chemical weapons. And that was ''before'' the Daleks came into the picture.
** Several Classic Era episodes with an environment Aesop present future Earth this way, albeit off-screen, e.g. "Colony in Space" and "The Curse of Fenric".
* ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' is the TropeNamer for "EarthThatWas", though the details are somewhat vague. In addition, much the same thing happened to Mal's homeworld, Shadow, at the hands of the Alliance during the Unification War.

* The machinations of the Venjix Empire has turned pretty much turned the whole world into this in ''Series/PowerRangersRPM''.
* In ''Series/TerraNova'', the entire Earth is covered in thick yellow smog in the 22nd century, requiring filtering masks for any time spent outside. The rich live under domes, PopulationControl is in effect, and [[BlackMarketProduce an orange is a rare and exciting find]]. The eponymous colony is located behind a one-way PortalToThePast--the late Cretaceous, where humanity might be able to start anew.
* {{Double subver|sion}}ted on ''Series/The100''. The Sky People were expecting Earth to still be a toxic, radioactive DeathWorld after the [[WorldWarIII nuclear war]] a century ago. Instead they find a lush, vibrant and abundantly habitable world, with little sign of nuclear contamination. Then they find out that Earth actually ''is'' still highly radioactive; they've just developed an unusually high tolerance for radiation, as have the various plants and animals on the planet's surface. The Mountain Men, who haven't developed such superhuman tolerance, find the Earth's surface just as toxic and deadly as the Sky People feared.

* ''Series/TheFortyFourHundred'': In "Terrible Swift Sword", Jordan Collier reveals in a television interview that Earth will be a wasteland in the future with only one city remaining on the planet.
* ''Series/LogansRun'': After the nuclear war in 2119, the world outside the City of Domes was polluted for almost 200 years. It had returned to normal by 2111 but the Council of Elders kept this from the city's inhabitants.

* The "industrial" trade classification in ''TabletopGame/{{Traveller}}'' describes a planet with billions of inhabitants and an unbreathable or barely breathable atmosphere, that's implied to be a global factory and (because of the way the ''Traveller'' random world generation system works) also very likely to have a repressive government.
* The land of Chaos Dwarfs in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' manages to be both {{Mordor}} and a Polluted Wasteland at once. It started as a dark volcanic wasteland... and then the Chaos Dwarfs brought in thousands of slaves to start strip mining and heavy industry. It's a wonder how they manage to feed their single giant city in such conditions.
* Many of the more established manufacturing worlds in ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' are described this way. Whether they be Forge Worlds covered in nothing but manufactoriums, or Hive Worlds scattered with immense urban sprawl cities, they usually tend to consume their immediate environment and push it past its point of capacity such that they depend on off world imports and terraforming machinery just to keep themselves habitable. The planet Armageddon is a well known example of this, often requiring re-breathers to breath comfortably in the areas near its hive cities. Indeed, this tends to motivate the otherwise sprawling nature of hive cities into dense "spires" where the air can be more easily kept breathable with environmental seals and carbon dioxide scrubber machines.
* Phyrexia in ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' is a techno-industrial hell, a twisted parody of natural worlds built of screaming metal and oil and inhabited by murderous cyborgs who eat, assimilate, or torture visitors (sometimes all three!). Mirrodin was later conquered by their last bioweapon, a mutagenic oil that turned it into New Phyrexia and twisted all its inhabitants and wildlife into hideous, murderous cyborgs.
* Athas, the world of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'''s Dark Sun setting, is a rare magical example of this. It was once lush and green, but the main form of magic here permanently destroys water. Centuries of reckless and rampant use of this magic have turned the entire world into a desert where few can survive.

* "Smog Rock" by German rocker Udo Lindenberg plays it much for laughs - it features a romance which is a bit hindered by the circumstances. He wants to count her the stars - oops, bad viewing conditions. He wants to kiss her - the gas mask gets in the way. Puns with "takes your breath away" et al. are mandatory.

* EdutainmentGame ''Zoombinis Island Odyssey'' features this as the resource aspect; the titular Zoombinis arrive at their abandoned homeland and realise that the invaders have removed all the butterflies and destroyed the environment(?). By returning caterpillars, the place gradually returns to its former glory. So, basically, you play through rebuilding an area.
* To some degree, Planet Leeds in ''VideoGame/{{Freelancer}}''. Instead of "great evil" there's just rampant irresponsibility, but ''the planet is capable of blowing out entire nebulae of smog.'' Accordingly, the government is depicted as unable to deal with the pollution and industrial accidents, and news stories of mine collapses devouring neighborhoods tromp across the Colonial News Service from time to time. Planet Houston also counts to some degree, being an entirely industrial planet that runs on prisoner labor.
* Done in the realistic approach in all the ''VideoGame/{{Oddworld}}'' series of games (and possible future movies), where the bad guys are the ones who pollute the land and drive species to extinction in their thirst for profits. This makes all bad guy areas disgusting industrial wastelands with gloomy smog as the clouds of doom, immense factories as the tall, dark towers, and cruel [=CEOs=] as the {{Big Bad}}s. The player is [[{{Anvilicious}} bashed over the head]] with the "Save the environment, Big corporations are bad" philosophy, which is ironic considering the last two games in this franchise were made for a Microsoft platform.
* The hyper-industrial Strogg from the ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}'' series of games turn every place and thing they can find into a Polluted Wasteland, as long as it can be used in a production facility somehow. Blood and gristle are fine lubricants, and they'll be damned if they can't find a way to install a human torso in a machine ''one'' way or another.
* California, Nevada, and Washington DC in the various ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' games, though this is a result of Global Thermonuclear War. A more traditional example is the Sierra Madre area in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas: Dead Money'', which is blanketed in the Cloud, a corrosive red smog created by the {{Mad Scientist}}s of Big Mountain. The Pitt from ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' has the worst of both industrial and radioactive pollution.
** you can find piles a barrels of nuclear wastes just laying around in all the games. In New Vegas in particular it is possible to find several truckloads of the stuff, because standard procedure for pre-war society was to just dump toxic waste wherever it was convenient.
* In ''VideoGame/JakIIRenegade'' and ''VideoGame/Jak3Wastelander'', the Metal Heads' territory, as well as Haven City itself, is very desolate, polluted, and dangerous.2), It's both a DeathWorld filled with dangerous monsters and polluted to the point it makes any real life environmental trainwrecks look quite pleasant in comparision.

* In ''VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndMoon'' you can reach [[EldritchAbomination the Ultra Beast Guzzlord]]'s homeworld, which turns out to be [[AlternateUniverse an alternate version of Earth]] that's been destroyed by pollution. The air is toxic, all the water requires purifiers to be drinkable, and Hau'oli City is completely in ruins. Humanity's long since abandoned the place for other worlds, and you only meet one other human who wears a hazmat suit and is unfamiliar with [[LostCommonKnowledge the color blue]]. It's gotten so bad that the only person you meet there says the Guzzlord population seems to be decreasing, despite them being a species of ExtremeOmnivore that can eat literally anything including toxic waste.

* ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'':
** Poison Pond from [[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry1 the original game]] combines this with UnderTheSea. The water in this level is green due to being polluted with toxic waste from [[EternalEngine Kremcroc Industries, Inc]].
** Crocodile Island from ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest'' is oddly both {{Mordor}} and a Polluted Wasteland. It has/had GangplankGalleon, an AmusementParkOfDoom called Krazy Kremland, a forboding EvilTowerOfOminousness, is filled with dead trees, Zingers (wasps), Brambles and danger, and the whole place and ocean around it is dark murky green. It actually sinks into the ocean after the final boss is defeated.
** Mekanos in ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry3DixieKongsDoubleTrouble'', which is the polluted side to this trope taken to extremes. A level with a giant ripsaw shredding a whole forest as it goes upwards and various factories. [[note]]Compare with KAOS Kore is quite a serene pleasant area, with the exception of Kastle KAOS and the DeathWorld like area of Lightning Lookout.[[/note]]
* ''VideoGame/NintendoWars''
** In VideoGame/BattalionWars, the nation of Xylvania ( EX Ill-Vain-Ia) is so polluted that the trees are all dead, the soil has degenerated into a grey-blue sludge, the sky is allways black with forge smoke, and the water is yellow from all the mine tailings. Xylvanians themselves are mutated into vampires, complete with pale skin, red eyes and snaggleteeth. Half of them need to wear hazmat armor when fighting in sulight.

* Not destroying the robot machines in ''[[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogCD Sonic CD]]'' results in the level you're playing in turning into a BadFuture which is usually a Polluted Wasteland.
* Spiller's Harbor from ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooieGruntysRevenge''. Once a beautiful resort, then [[BigBad Gruntilda]] and her minions came and turned the place into an oil refinery.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Starfox 64}}'', the once beautiful ocean planet of Zoness has been turned into one of these by Andross, with sickly greenish water and mutants all around.
** Likewise for Venom throughout the series.
* In ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' many areas of Zaun are like this, due to their total lack of safety restrictions. Other parts of Runeterra are also pretty much uninhabitable as a result of magical fallout from the Rune Wars.
* The Space Pirate Homeworld of ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3Corruption'' is very much this. The planet's acid rain is the most dangerous environmental hazard in that game, killing you almost before you can realize it.
* The city of Moscow in ''VideoGame/{{Metro 2033}}'' and ''VideoGame/MetroLastLight'' has become such a wasteland following a nuclear war 20 years prior. The surface is completely uninhabitable due to radiation, poisonous air, and [[NuclearNasty man-eating mutants]], forcing the citizens to live out their lives in the Metro tunnels beneath the city. And even there, they're not completely safe, as subterranean mutants and corrupt, warmongering factions remain a major threat. It's made even more glaring in ''VideoGame/MetroExodus'', where [[spoiler:the areas outside of Moscow have normal, breathable air and radiation is far less prevalent, though mutants are still a concern]].
* Tuchanka from ''Franchise/MassEffect'' is a post-nuclear wasteland dotted with ruins and rubble, to the extent that when Grunt gets his first look at his homeworld, his immediate reaction boils down to "''This'' is Tuchanka? Seriously? What a shithole." Of course, the krogan, who believe in TheSpartanWay, ''prefer'' Tuchanka as a hellhole where the air has to be specially filtered by a high-tech purification tower to be breathable, because it ensures they have to be strong to survive.
* In ''Videogame/{{Factorio}}'', ''you'' play as the wannabe WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanet villain polluting the planet. Automation equipment used in factories spew out pollution that kills off forests and [[GaiasVengeance agitates]] the local BigCreepyCrawlies. A factory built in a pristine forest will soon turn the green trees into dead husks. Sadly, there is no way to directly dump oil into water sources - without [[GameMod mods]], at least.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Indivisible}},'' the Iron Kingdom (a FantasyCounterpartCulture of Industrial Revolution London) is choked with foul-smelling green smog and slathered in industrial runoff that resembles nothing so much as vast ammounts of ABC (Already Been Chewed) bubblegum. [[NightmareFetishist Naturally, Razmi the Witch loves it.]]

* Used in ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' sometimes to reinforce the occasional GreenAesop. Without even mentioning [[{{Anvilicious}} "The Painted Lady"]], several episodes that take place in the Fire Nation come with shots of strip mines, factories with belching smokestacks, machinery, and lots and lots of metal stuff and steampunk technology.
** Except for the parts that look like a cross between Imperial Japan and Hawaii.

* Robotropolis and its immediate surroundings from ''WesternAnimation/SonicSatAM'' counts, with Dr. Robotnik actively polluting the place because he loves the smell.
* In most incarnations of the ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' franchise, Cybertron hs been reduced to the sci-fi version of this, due to brutal warfare sparked by resource shortage.
* Various locations were made into these for ''WesternAnimation/{{Captain Planet|and the Planeteers}}'' (one of their panoramas makes the Page Image).
* ''WesternAnimation/YogisGang'': [[MeaningfulName Smog City]] is this thanks to Smokestack Smog's smog factory.

* The Ruhr Valley in Germany, throughout the late-19th and 20th centuries. The River Rhine was said to be polluted enough to be able to develop photographs in it. Add in the coal-mining, steel industry and chemical industry and the result was a Polluted Wasteland.
** The GDR had a few such places as well, and tales of former Soviet-personnel-occupied areas (specifically industrial and military) brimming with pollution, loaded with deadly chemicals in the soil and generally being almost impossible to enter are fairly widespread, since the Soviets didn't bother to clean up anything when they left. After the reunion, one of the bigger issues was getting rid of all the pollution and making those places inhabitable again. Overall, it generally worked.
* The city of Norilsk in Siberia definitely qualifies. According to the Blacksmith Institute, it's one of the top 10 most polluted cities on earth due to a huge concentration of nickel mines and smelters. According to our friends at Wiki/TheOtherWiki, there's not a ''single tree'' within 48 kilometers of one smelter. The soil is so saturated with heavy metals that it's ''mineable''. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norilsk#Environment Here's a picture and more info.]] Perhaps fittingly, it was founded as a [[TheGulag Soviet Gulag labor camp]]. And to top it off, it's one of the largest cities north of the Arctic Circle, at about 70 degrees North (it apparently has the northernmost mosque in the world). But this is not all. This place is actually known as "Place of the Real Russian Umbrella Corp.", because the [[CompanyTown de-facto ruler]] is MegaCorp "Norilsk Nickel" that seems to check off every item on the list of Evil MegaCorp practices: mocking its own employees; slowly poisoning the city, its residents, [[AndYourLittleDogToo dogs]] (lots of them), and even Canada; choking out labor competition as the only place in the city one can work is..."Norilsk Nickel". Be well, citizen, your CEO loves you, and you owe your soul to the company store!
** To give some perspective, Norlisk by itself produces over 1% of global carbon emissions, and is the eleventh most pouting city on the planet, and at one time was number one. [[note]]It actually may well still be at number one, there is tons of evidence Russia is lying about its carbon output[[/note]] Unlike any in the top ten list, Norlisk does not have any petrochemicals to process nor is it large. Its just uses ''that'' much fuel for its industry.

** There were places around Glasgow, the Scottish mining belt, and Fife where you could set rivers on fire due to mine runoff. Scots of a certain age and locality will remember the "hot burn" - the principal stream of chemicals running from industrial works into the nearest river - which was not to be played near in any circumstances.

* ''Series/TheFortyFourHundred'': In "Terrible Swift Sword", Jordan Collier reveals in a television interview that Earth will be a wasteland in the future with only one city remaining on the entire planet.

* The infamous Corona Ash Dumps. The area where Flushing Meadows–Corona Park now sits used to be a nightmarish dump site back in the 1920's. Ash and street sweepings were originally brought in as landfill for what used to be mashland and it just escalated until the site was filled with literal mountains of soot, horse manure, and garbage. Nearby neighborhoods were plagued not only by the sights and smells, but rat infestations. The dump is what inspired the Valley of Ashes in Literature/TheGreatGatsby.

* ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry''