This Toxic Life
Our world is awash with petro-chemicals. From plastics to pesticides
they are integral to modern life. Wayne Ellwood argues that we are all
paying the price for the release of these hazardous substances.

By Wayne Ellwood
New Internationalist

‘Every time I come here my body gets sad and angry at the same time,’
says Ron Plain. ‘You can’t put into words what it means to me.’

We’ve just tumbled out of Ron’s jeep near the end of a three-hour tour
of Sarnia, Ontario’s ‘chemical valley’. Ron calls it his ‘toxic tour’.
He’s done it dozens of times so the patter is easy and familiar.
Sarnia is a gritty blue-collar community of 70,000 people at the top
of the St Clair River, on the Canadian side, about a 100 kilometres
north of Detroit. The river is wide and fast-flowing here, a natural
link from Lake Huron, south to Lake Erie and east to Lake Ontario.

Ron is a member of the Chippewa First Nation of Aamjiwnaang and we’ve
stopped at his community’s cemetery, a quiet patch of land ringed by a
high steel fence. He’s 46 years old but tells me he doesn’t expect to
make it to 60. Ron points out the graves of his parents, his
grandparents and great grandparents, his aunts and uncles. Carbon
dating shows his ancestors have been living in this area of southern
Ontario for 6,000 years. It’s a warm day in early spring and the trees
are just starting to leaf out. But nothing can hide the looming petro-
chemical plant which abuts the graveyard. A tall chimney burns with an
orange flame in the bright sun. To the east, a few hundred yards away,
is a parking lot and another chemical complex. The cemetery is a
microcosm of the whole reserve. Aamjiwnaang is literally surrounded by
dozens of chemical plants. The community of 900 souls on the southern
edge of Sarnia sits in the middle of the densest collection of petro-
chemical industries in Canada and one of the densest in North America.
There are 62 plants within a 25-kilometre radius, 40 per cent of the
country’s total. The players include some of the word’s biggest and
most powerful corporations — Dow, Shell, Nova, Bayer and Imperial Oil
(Exxon) all operate within five kilometres of the reserve, most of
them 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Gender bending

Link to con.