There are dozens of municipalities across Canada that still use asbestos cement water pipes, servicing homes, businesses and schools. Regina, Saskatchewan has 600 kilometres of asbestos cement water pipes. “These pipes are experiencing more and more failures in recent years and account for almost all of the water main breaks in the city,” reads an NRC report on the matter. The report goes on to refer to asbestos fibres in water as a “health concern.”
Plastics are all around us, from the clothes we wear and the packaging that contains our food to construction materials in our homes and much more. Microplastics are small pieces of plastic that are less than 5 millimetres long. Microplastics can come from a variety of sources. They can come from plastic that has broken apart or resin pellets used for plastic manufacturing or in the form of microbeads. They can also be found in the fabric of synthetic clothing.
First off, it’s important to understand the discrepancy between the terms “guideline” and “regulation”, as this difference is critically important. The term guideline, can be defined as follows: “a line by which one is guided: an indication or outline of policy or conduct” (MerriamWebster, 2008). Meaning, a guideline is often a benchmark that should be followed, but technically, isn’t lawfully required to be followed.
