A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity of spending a week in Toronto,
what a beautiful city. The CN tower is just amazing and the view from on Lake
Ontario is phenomenal. In talking into a local resident, she was telling me
that it was prohibited to swim at the lake. The reason: all Toronto factories
are allowed to dump their residuals and chemicals into the lake, making it
unsuitable for swimming. Lake Ontario is one of the Great Lakes of North
America with almost 400 cubic miles (1,640 Km3) of water in it….and it’s
completely contaminated. The lake is important to a wide variety of biodiversity,
hosting a wide variety of animals and plants. The fact that the lake is
contaminated now, only tells us a story for the future. When all this
biodiversity starts to get impacted by the pollution in the lake, the
consequences are going to be huge, specially thinking in the broader lake
ecosystem in the northern part of the continent. Factories pouring chemicals is also a result of the insane consumption that we are used to. That’s why my tip for today is reduce, reuse, recycle. If you don’t need something or need less, reduce its consumption. In the same way, reduce your garbage and your water use. If you can reuse or borrow something, do so before buying it. Discounts and sales are always attractive, but think about what you already have before going and taking advantage of those sales. When you can’t reuse something anymore, make sure you recycle and buy products with recycled content.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Ontario
