If you want to be a part of the largest, most celebrated environmental event worldwide you can hang your clothes outside to dry, or park the car and walk to the store.
The event is “Earth Week” and more than 6 million Canadians join 500 million people in over 180 countries in staging events to address local environmental issues.
Some environmental concerns throughout this region include poor air quality and polluted water.
One of Environment Canada’s air monitoring stations is in Grand bend and local Environmentalist Ray Letheren says what they find on a yearly basis indicates there’s very bad air quality for Huron County more often then in Toronto.
Letheren says the bulk of the bad air is coming from the Ohio Valley Industrial belt which moves over Sarnia and Windsor and drifts over Huron County.
He add’s Tiverton shows even worse levels then Grand Bend.
As far as drinking water goes Letheren says when Environment Canada started testing water years ago they discovered trace amounts of acids found in aspirin, caffeine, and chemotherapy drugs in the water.
He says there’s no need to panic as the findings are not life threatening, however, he add’s it’s still alarming and it’s time to stop before it gets any worse.
In Canada, this week started as Earth Day and has since grown into Earth Week and Earth Month to accommodate the profusion of events and projects taking place from coast to coast.
In 1990, two million Canadians joined 200 million people in 141 nations in celebrating the first International Earth Day.
