If you are looking for a new home or are interested in how safe the air is in your neighborhood, PlanetHazard provides information about the toxins you may be breathing. You can search by top ten polluters, all polluters, browse polluters, list pollutants, list polluters, and list industries. Many of these searches are available for the entire US, by state, by county, and/or by city. Data is based on 2002 EPA National Emission Inventory.

When searching for the top ten polluters in my state of California, I expected the polluters to be much farther south than I live. When the map of the polluters popped up, I was shocked to find out that the number two polluter in the Golden State is Burney Forest Products, about 140 miles from my remote home (not as the eagle flies). When I searched in my local county, the refuse disposal sites are the greatest polluters.

The greatest polluter in the United States , according to PlanetHazard, is the Regional Sanitation District in Elk Grove, California. Once again, I am shocked to learn that Burney Forest Products is the number two polluter in the country! The number three polluter is the Georgia Power Company’s Bowen Steam-Electric Generating Plant.

What to do with this information? Being informed is the first step in creating change. The next step is to inform others, thus we can work together to clean up the polluters near our homes. You may be surprised how close polluters are to your home, your child’s school, your work, etc. Clean air to breathe is the right of all humans.