Standing on the edge of the water in Toronto near the island airport is a testament to one of the old industries of the city, and to the former use of a region now dominated by condo development. The Canada Malting Company Plant, known to many Toronto explorers as the CMP, or simply as 'The Malt Plant' has been spared the fate being razed for development, as the City of Toronto sees it as a historical building. Well, the silos anyways... in early August 2010, demolition began on part of the complex.

The old Flintkote Plant in Lockport remains a mystery to most explorers who attempt to look into its history. While bits of its past are known, large segments of its existence are missing. It is known that the plant was originally a paper mill, and later moved in the asphalt shingle manufacturing business. Following that, the plant was involved with asbestos production, before finally fading back into nature.

Sitting in the middle of one of the rougher districts of Rochester, this grand industrial complex stands out alongside the railway next to it. But looks can be deceiving; while parts of the plant are abandoned, others are active under new owners. But none of them are the American Laundry Machinery Co, the original owners.

Everyone loves nature, even people raised in the most urban environments. Something about the natural look of green, combined with the colours of different flowers attracts our attention. And what better place to see all of this, but at a set of greenhouses?

The irony of this visit was never lost on me. I was visiting the remains of the Eastman Kodak complex, once the manufacturing home for rolls upon rolls of film, carrying on my back one of the reasons for the demise of the film industry... my digital camera. But such is life in any industry where technology can have major impacts... you adapt or you end up left behind.

A subsidiary of Stelco Inc, Stelwire was the largest producer of steel wire products in Canada. It's Burlington Works plant, located in the industrial zones of Burlington, was where roughly 1/3rd of the production, and dealt with rod processing.

The former village of Leaside, once isolated from the city until it eventually was swallowed by East York, and later Toronto itself, was a pre-planned railway village established by CN Railway near their own rail line through the Don Valley and adjacent to the rival CP Railway. Built on the land once owned by John Lea, the residential/industrial village grew and was involved in war efforts for both World Wars.

Symes at one point was an active transfer station in Toronto's waste management scheme, but now it sits unused, save for storage of waste and recycling bins. And random junk that for some reason found its way there.

A place I've been meaning to go to for quite some time... and yet I left it for too long. It was a shell of itself when I finally got to it, gutted from the inside out. Some of the tanks remained, along with conduits and catwalks, but the majority of the machinery was gone.

One of the original large industrial complexes, complete with one of the first taller multi-story buildings to be built in Toronto, the building originally housed the Northern Aluminum Co, which went through several name changes until finally becoming Alcan at the time the building was sold to Tower Automotive of the United States. When Tower ran into financial difficulties, however, the building was sold for redevelopment.

Not much is known about this west-end Toronto meat packers... at least, not much prior to the night of November 6, 2006. That was the night that the building housing the New York Pork & Food Exchange Ltd. burst into flame.

Any building that was built before 1982 and is made of bricks is connected to this once-active location; its history stretches across the city due to the bricks in most of the city being made here. Now, the former source of Toronto's bricks sits abandoned, its quarry turned into a natural park while the building itself rots away.

Say the word incinerator in Toronto, and you're likely going to hear an essay on environmental issues relating to it from some city dwellers. It wasn't that long ago waste was being burned in the city, however, in several locations; the Wellington Destructor was one of these trash-burning places in the city, working alongside one that used to stand at the Don Valley and Dundas, and another now closed plant in the city Portlands.