Rather, pollution is largely something that occurs in the production process in locations where desperation for production is so high that they are not willing to put in any personal effort or social policies to curtail it at the expense of production.
However, once you become richer, air quality and so on moves higher in our collective list of priorities. Production can occur without pollution. It is just more expensive, and requires care.
Despite all of this, air quality is relatively high. Water quality is relatively high. Ecological preservation efforts have restored all sorts of habitats and saved species from extinction.
Gina Rinehart has become a billionaire in Australia by owning a massive coal mining operation. A lot of the coal is burned locally, but most is exported to Asia. Asia isn't forced to buy Australian coal. Asian countries could instead put a tax on dirty energy, and encourage cleaner energy. But some combination of reasons keeps that low in their list of priorities.
And even if they unfortunately wish to continue to burn coal, it would be possible to force the use of air scrubbers and purchasing purer grades of coal. But that isn't pursued for the same reasons.
Because almost all the industrial production that pollutes water and air moved to third-world countries, where people suffer from pollution. Same for thrash that is taken to China, India, Indonesia for "recycling", but is actually burned in fires or thrown into the ocean. I wouldn't consider it an improvement due to advances in technology.