Are you concerned about environmental cancer risks in your community?

Parents naturally want to minimize risk for their children. When it comes to environmentally-based risk factors, there are reasons to be especially concerned about children. Children may absorb more environmental contaminants because they breathe, eat and drink more than adults relative to their body weight.  Also, infants and toddlers sit more often on the ground and crawl to explore areas where adults typically don't go and they often put their hands and fingers into their mouths.

But, how do you reduce exposure to toxic substances in the environment if you don’t know where they are there? 

One answer is a municipal community right to know bylaw.

Municipal community right-to-know bylaws build on the information available from the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario.

The Government of Canada operates the  National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) which is a public inventory of pollutant releases (to air, water and land), disposals and transfers for recycling. The website allows the public to search by postal code for information about their community. In the next few years, Ontario will also be creating a website as part of its Toxics Reduction Act.

Community right-to-know bylaws are critical because larger government programs only publish information when the quantities of toxic substances are fairly high. This means exposure to toxic substances in your neighborhood may not be tracked or reported because the quantities are perceived too low. 

Some municipalities have recognized that the over-all exposure from smaller scale facilities using toxic substances add up and have created community right-to-know bylaws that require the tracking of toxic substances.

A great example is the City of Toronto’s Environmental Reporting, Disclosure and Innovation Program. Their program includes provisions that: 

• Require local facilities to track and report their use and release of priority toxic substances.
• Provide the public with information on key toxic substances in their communities.
• Raise awareness and provide support to local facilities about their use and release of priority toxic substances and find ways to prevent this pollution.

The program is being established in phases. According to the City’s schedule, information about local toxic substances will be available through a public website in 2012

Community right-to-know bylaws are effective for a number of reasons including:

• They contribute to a more comprehensive picture of environmental conditions in the municipality and potential health risks which allows community member to have the information they need to make informed decisions about their health.
• Improve emergency response preparedness by making information on hazardous substances more readily available to first responders and emergency personnel
• Create opportunities for the municipality to engage in pollution prevention, toxics use reduction and environmental procurement.
• Provide the municipality with tools to target reductions of substances identified as local problems.

An example of an industry that uses toxic substances but is not included in the Federal and Provincial programs is dry cleaning. To clean clothes, dry cleaners often use a substance called Tetrachloroethylene or Perc. Perc according to the International Agency for Cancer Research is a probable cancer-causing substance. In spite of this status, for the most part, there is no tracking of use and release of this substance.

To ensure that substances like Perc are disclosed to the public, it is important that municipalities develop local community right-to-know bylaws.