Burning Trust

Residents of Hamilton, Ontario say they were burned in more ways than one by a huge industrial blaze that blanketed their city in toxic smoke for days. It was a disaster, they say, that could have been prevented. For four days last July, a black, toxic cloud hung over the city of Hamilton; Canada’s “steel city” on the shores of Lake Ontario. It was the worst fire in Hamilton’s history and one of the worst fires of its kind in the world. The Hamilton conflagration was a plastics fire: polyvinyl chloride, or PVC plastic. As hundreds of tons of PVC burned, it released huge amounts of toxic chemicals, including dioxin, one of the most carcinogenic substances known. Some residents say the Hamilton blaze was not an accident: it was the culmination of years of bungling, mismanagement and misjudgment by a slew of government officials. And experts say it could happen again elsewhere in the industrialized world. Living On Earth contributor Bob Carty prepared the following documentary examination of a disaster that need not have happened.