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Pollution Explained Speech by: Mr. Everett Biggs, Deputy Minister Ontario Department of Agriculture and Food To: The Federated Women’s Institutes of Ontario Twenty-Second Annual Officers9 Conference At: The University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario April 29, I 970 First 1 want to express my sincere thanks for inviting me here today. It is a pleasure to speak to a group that has done so much to help homemakers improve the quality of life in homes throughout rural Ontario. While considering the material for my talk this morning, I thought about the basic objecâ€" tives of the work carried out by the Federated Women‘s lnstitutes of Ontario. As noted in one of your pamphlets, the basic aim of the F.W.li0. is to help develop a more abundant life for the rural people of Ontario by working to achieve four objectives, which include: en- couraging better homemaking practices; help- ing develop happier and more useful citizens; discovering and stimulating leadership; and en- couraging appreciation of the things near at hand. After thinking about these objectives, I felt it was appropriate that your organization wants to know more about pollution. For, if pollution goes unchecked, our life style, our standard of living, the things we have done to improve the health and welfare of our families will be seriously affected. Basically pollution is the addition of foreign matter to our natural environment to a degree that is insupportable by nature. Soil, water and air are all equipped to handle a certain amount of organic and inorganic waste. But, if the amount of foreign material exceeds this ac- ceptable amount, it becomes pollution. In considering pollution it is essential to look at man in relation to the other compo- nents that make up our natural environment in this planet. “We are simply one component, albeit the dominant one, of the present terâ€" restrial environment. As such, there are no constraints â€" moral. philosophical or other wise ~â€" nothing except purely physical ones, on our freedom to manage our environment for our own ends. But this freedom to progress is also a freedom to retrogress, for we now have the opportunity and ability to achieve unâ€" paralleled quality of environment and human life, or to destroy both utterly." These com- ments emerged from the Pollution and Our Environment conference sponsored and Organ. ized by the Canadian Council of Resource Ministers late in 1966. 20 More recently President Nixon, in his ' of the Union Message, spoke of our em. ment this Way: “The truly significant em- ment for each of us is that in which we M 80% of our time â€" that is, our homes places of work and the streets over whiei pass." The fight against pollution is gaining mentum throughout both Canada and United States. Last week, the United State- clared Wednesday, April 22nd, as Earth i The purpose of Earth Day was to pro. public awareness of the problems which. cording to many noted scientists, mtm checked in the very near future or this pl will be unfit for us to live in. The newspapers, radio and televisiOn rt-y ed widespread public support of Earth Dav New York City more than 100,000 pet strolled along sections of Fifth Avenue 14th Street which were closed to Haiti commemoration of Earth Day. Peaceful r., involving up to 25,000 persons were hell major cities throughout the United S. And, in Montreal, as part of that city‘s F Day events, they held a fashion shox clothes for the polluted future. To me, one of the most outstanding tr about Earth Day was that it combined th- forts of people who care â€" men and m- who are concerned about the environment families will live in, in the future. This morning I am going to mention of the sources of pollution that are com: ing to increased soil, air and water pollutil Soil pollution is most frequently assoL with the use of fertilizers, pesticides and it. cides by the agricultural industry, and the posal of solid wastes by both urban and communities. In the last couple years, studies by the tario Government indicated that DDT ad1y affects predatory fish, and fish-eating ‘1 but that the present level of DDT in the . ronment presents no hazard to human l'IL These were the factors that prompted the tario Government to restrict the use of I and initiate strict rules for the collection disposal of existing supplies of DDT. HOME AND COUl : {RY