The irony is that the plant in Canada making materials for the Prius battery has destroyed the surrounding environment, from the article: Toyota gets the metal from a Canadian company whose smelting facility at Sudbury has spewed sulphur dioxide into the air for more than a century.
The car giant buys about 1,000 tons a year from the plant, which is owned by Inco, one of the world's largest nickel-mining companies.
Fumes emerging from the factory are so poisonous that they have destroyed vegetation in the surrounding countryside, turning the once-beautiful landscape into the bare, rocky terrain astronauts might expect to find in outer space.
Here's a full link:
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/...n_page_id=1770