Ashbridges Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant

The Ashbridges Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant is the city of Toronto's main sewage treatment facility, and the largest such plant in Canada. One of four plants that service the city of Toronto, it treats the wastewater produced by some 1.3 million of the city's residents and has a capacity of 818,000 cubic metres per day. Until 1999 it was officially known as the Main Treatment Plant. The plant opened in 1912. Prior to this Toronto's sewage flowed directly into Lake Ontario, and a layer of thick sludge covered the lake to a distance of several hundred feet from shore. The lake was also the source of the city's drinking water, and the pollution contributed to a major typhoid outbreak. The plant is located on the shore of Lake Ontario at...