Sunday, December 18, 2011

Toxins

Ever wonder about what type of toxins are found in the area you live? You need to check out http://scorecard.goodguide.com/ This is an amazing website that allows you to enter your zip code and then provides you with the toxin, air, water, and environmental justice facts for your community.
I put in the zip code for my neighborhood and found out that my county was ranked one of the dirties/worst 10% of all counties in the U.S. The site even provides you with a list of the top polluters in your community, the top polluter in my community released 63,620 lbs of hydrochloric acid into our community (this toxin creates acid rain and smog).
Looking at the site for my community I found that three of the top polluting companies had toxic spills that contaminated our local water ways-this is scary. It is especially scary because I didn’t know about this. I find that this is a major problem, people are not aware of the environmental problems in their communities. If we want to take care of our planet we all need to educate ourselves and become involved. I implore all of our readers to check out the site and find out how your community ranks, if you don’t like what you read take some action. Write your local governments about your concerns, if we don’t take action things will never change.

-Amanda

2 comments:

  1. Interesting enough my spouse's employer is on the 'naughty' list. I do wish all the categories reported on the website were more current though. I feel that current information would be much more beneficial. Thanks for the link though.

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  2. Boise, I totally agree, I found having the list not updated a bit annoying. I email the person in charge to see if we could get a more updated list. Bill Pease said they are working on it. Hopefully we can get a more current look in the next few months!

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