PollutionWatch shows the biggest polluters in Canada include: Air polluter. The largest air polluter is the Ontario Government's Nanticoke coal-fired electricity generating station. The Nanticoke power plant on the shores of Lake Erie released 6,934,136 kg of contaminants to the air, mostly lung-irritating, acid rain-causing gases. Nanticoke released nearly 6.3 million kg of hydrochloric acid; 389,088 kg of hydrogen fluoride, an acid rain-causing, irritating gas declared hazardous by the US EPA; 355,421 kg of sulphuric acid, and 226 kg of the nerve toxin mercury. Water polluter. The largest water polluter is the City of Calgary's Bonnybrook Wastewater Treatment Plant. It discharged 7.6 million kg of contaminants of concern in the treated sewage it released into the Bow River. The plant's discharges included 7.5 million kg of nitrate which reduces the ability of blood to carry oxygen; and 107,200 kg of ammonia, a substance that has been declared toxic by the Canadian government. Cancer polluter. The largest emitter of cancer-causing substances to the Canadian environment was the Safety-Kleen (now Clean Harbor Canada) hazardous waste landfill and incinerator in Corunna, Ontario. The hazardous waste facility near Sarnia, Ontario released 952,570 kg of carcinogens, including 774,569 kg of lead (which is also a nerve toxin), nearly all to an on-site landfill; and 73,120 kg of nickel, a cancer-causing substance, most to landfill. Birth defects polluter. The Safety-Kleen (now Clean Harbor Canada) hazardous waste landfill and incinerator in Corunna, Ontario released 857,584 kg of chemicals that can interfere with human reproductive outcomes and child development. Safety-Kleen released 774,569 kg of lead, which can impair a child's development and intelligence; 66,703 kg of cadmium which at high exposure levels can cause low body weight, smaller testes and developmental problems in new-born and developing young animals; 15,100 kg of arsenic which has been observed to cause birth defects in animals (and can cause lung, skin, bladder, liver, kidney and prostate cancer); and 1,160 kg of the nerve toxin mercury (which slows development and reduces intelligence) - most to its landfill and 240 kg to the air. Ozone-depleting polluter. OC Celfortec's plastic foam products facility in Grande-Ile, Quebec, was the largest emitter of substances that destroy the planet's protective ozone layer. The plant emitted 415,120 kg of ozone-depleting substances, including 304,870 kg of HCFC-142b and 110,250 kg of HCFC-22. Toxics polluter. Alcan's Usine Vaudreuil bauxite refining operation in Jonquière, Quebec, was the largest discharger of chemicals designated as toxic by Environment Canada under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA). Usine Vaudreuil released 10,163,062 kg of toxics in 2001, including more than 10 million kg of calcium fluoride to an on-site landfill. Calcium fluoride can irritate lungs and can cause bone changes called skeletal fluorosis. The plant also released 3,236 kg of cancer-causing benzo(a)pyrene to landfill. Air Releases of Carcinogens by Province Rank Provinces Air Releases of Toxics of Carcinogens (kg) Percentage 1 Ontario 2,736,369 38. 18 % 2 Alberta 1,283,727 17. 91 % 3 Quebec 1,261,851 17. 61 % 4 British Columbia 797,639 11. 13 % 5 New Brunswick 392,403 5. 47 % 6 Manitoba 369,686 5. 16 % 7 Saskatchewan 115,839 1. 62 % 8 Nova Scotia 97,280 1. 36 % 9 Newfoundland 65,029 . 91 % 10 Northwest Territories 29,103 . 41 % 11 Prince Edward Island 18,325 . 26 % Look at your own backyard before pointing fingers at others.
I didn't say that, however you did say "The oil industry in Alberta creates the most pollution out of any other in Canada." WE are all part of the problem... and it really pisses me off when people are so quick to point fingers without looking in their own back yards...
Jeff&Deb, your listing of just the major polluters in Canada makes for scary reading. Here's the irony, for me: if producers of products were required to recapture and detoxify all the material they can now discharge at no cost to them, the true cost of producing their products would become apparent. Many things now produced would no longer be produced, for lack of demand, and others would be produced in far smaller quantities, with demand reduced as a result of the higher cost to the end users. Anything else is dishonest, and a form of self-deceit, with the bill to come due in the future in the form of deteriorating conditions for life on the planet. We will, in the end, all pay for our misuse of the planet. What we do now is often heedless, with godless profit the main motive for our shortsighted decisions.
What annoys me is the chinese argument that because we've already had our industrialisation, and polluted very heavily from it, then it is their right to do the same as they go through theirs. getting back to the original point twinimi made; i feel for your daughter, i've seen countless numbers of people lose their jobs due to outsourcing of call centres and IT services to eastern europe and india, where the labour is plentiful and very cheap ... but ultimately the quality of the end product is very poor.
Outsourcing wise? That's very true, Franco, but as for call centres have you considered the level of education and training these tasks require? Not much. And, as for IT, I don't know about the UK, but the U.S. has not had sufficient young people who wanted to pursue careers in IT to meet the need, it seems. As for the companies being satisfied with poor quality, this is a decision they make, and then have to live with the consequences if they lose trade because of irritating the hell out of their customers. (Who hasn't had their call answered by someone ten time zones away who could barely understand you, and you couldn't understand at all!) Developed nations have to stay ahead of the curve on education, training and innovation: any nation that doesn't will ultimately lose out in the economic race. If China, and other nations move to the fore, it won't be because of cheap labor, it will ultimately be because they individually and collectively valued education and personal achievement more than the people produced by other societies. Are our societies producing young people bent on maximizing their personal potential, or are we producing a generation of indolent wastrels? Folks, how often do you sit down with your children to study with them over their homework- showing by your actions how important education is? ____________________ As for twini's original complaint- that jobs in his daughter's chosen field were hard to come by, and others with similar education are working in their respective countries, while she cannot not in hers- I suppose it's very easy to understand the frustration. Whether there was a lack of opportunity in the U.S. when she began this long journey, or it has come about entirely since she started her pursuit of this degree (perhaps as a result of the financial collapse of the U.S.), she may find that relocating will be necessary, until conditions improve markedly in the U.S. Going where the research is conducted, and those with the best trained intellects will rise to the top, is always preferable to letting an education go to waste, and skills decline. The biographies of scores of the best researchers in history are full of stories of immigration to fulfill a burning ambition to achieve in their fields.
They're calling it off-shoring when the jobs are leaving the country for India and whatnot. And it's not only help desk. SunLife Financial in Canada off-shores a lot of computer programming tasks to Pakistan. There are a lot of educated jobs that will be following suit in the next 10-15 years.
Whining verboten 4, I'm often guilty of speaking about things as an abstract matter, while the realities of living through the adjustments required when it gets down to the personal level is never easy. But, I've long thought the one constant in life is "change" and being able to see a way forward, in the face of change, is key to not arriving at a dead end.
