I just ran across this most interesting website this morning: www.scorecard.org.  I plugged in my home zipcode in the US, and VOILA I got a great overview of the largest polluters in Wicomico County, MD and a summary of the interesting things the pollutants they emit can do for you. Mostly negative things, at that.

Turns out that the largest polluter is Perdue farms, with a mere 217,000 pounds of N-HEXANE which is a neurotoxicant, reproductive, developmental and respiratory toxant. Neat. Plus, with 217,000 pounds of it, that equals a hefty 2.56 pounds of the stuff per person in the county.

But at least my family living there isn’t as lucky as the poor chaps in neighboring Sussex County, Delaware – while the single biggest polluter (by weight it is NRG Energy in Indian River. Right behind that is Perdue again with 550,000 pounds of Nitrate compounds, with DuPont following with a smattering of Hydrochloric and Sulfuric acids, as well as Chromium and Mercury, with thier own contribution of 145,000 pounds of Nitrates) has halved toxic releases over the last four years, the current amount of toxic output ends up being a mere 17.4 pounds of waste per person. That includes some nasties like hydroflouric & hydrochloric acid (which isn’t that bad, if it spills on your pants you just have to wash it off fast enough.. and oh yeah, that is assuming that it’s not finely dipersed into the air you’re breathing, which this stuff is), as well as the dangerous chromium and other usual heavy metals (barium, copper, mercury, etc). Anyway, you get the point (I grew up in Sussex county, and they’ve got pretty bad statistics when it comes to pollution it seems!)

So check out your community today! http://www.scorecard.org