It is especially dangerous to babies and young children because some of the chemicals act like hormones, screwing up human growth and development. Even BC's most modern mills continue to create contamination that damages the DNA of fish. Whether it is doing the same to our children is not yet clear. Pulp mills are making our air toxic too. Particulate matter, small particles from burning, hurt people with asthma or pulmonary disease and have just been declared toxic to humans under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
Mills also produce pollution that leads to smog and global warming.
Perhaps most disturbing, given industry claims that they have solved the dioxin problem, is the fact that pulp mills are the largest single source of airborne dioxins in BC and create one-fifth of all measured dioxin in Canada. Mills have made dioxin hard to measure in the water, but there is plenty in their air emissions and ash. There is plenty of it being created. Dioxins and furans are known carcinogens and mutagens. They persist in animal tissue and the environment.