Facial Tissues, September 2005, Ontario
The Guardian: Paper pulp waste, resulting from facial tissue manufacture. At this factory, the pulp for the most popular facial tissue is produced. The wood fibre is obtained from the Kenogami national forest in Ontario, where the government subsidizes the cutting of old growth forest. The forest, once home for a multitude of species, is an immensely diverse and complex ecosystem and habitat, and will be replaced by a monoculture of factory farmed trees which will be cut again. This aeration pond is part of the effluent treatment system. The primary task of the treatment is to remove organics (wood fibre) from the water before it is returned to its source (typically a river). These ponds are filled with a mixture of micro-organisms that break down the organic material. The aeration is to break up particles in the effluent and to provide oxygen to the microbes.
From Abstraction of Destruction, J. Henry Fair's images of environmental degradation, most of them taken out of planes at 1,000 feet. The pictures appear in his recent book, The Day After Tomorrow: Images of Our Earth in Crisis.
