Fecal Contamination

"Animals raised for food produce 130 times as much excrement as the entire U.S. population." This amount of fecal matter, which is roughly 89,000 pounds per second, can have severe affects on people and the environment. The problem with this waste is that the pollution strength of raw manure is 160 greater than that of raw municipal sewage. Since their are no regulations on what farms or factories need to do with their waste, the concentrated feces is being left in huge lagoons to rot or sprayed over crop fields. Both of these "disposal" methods are just leeway for parasites, bacteria, and chemicals to land in water runoff. If humans live near such farms, it is not uncommon for them to become very sick from the pollution. A statement put out by he Senate Agricultural Committee offered this warning: "It's untreated and unsanitary, bubbling with chemicals and diseased...It goes onto the soil and into the water that many people will, ultimately, bathe in and wash their clothes with and drink. It is poisoning rivers and killing fish and making people sick...Catastrophic cases of pollution, sickness, and death are occurring in areas where livestock operations are concentrated...Every place where he animal factories have located, neighbors have complained of falling sick."

Vegetarianism and the environment

Global climate change is effected by several factors. Several of the factors directly have to do with what we eat and they way we get our food. 1/3 of all fossil fuels produced in the United States are used towards animal agriculture. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1), says the production of one calorie of animal protein requires more than ten times the fossil fuel input as a calorie of plant protein. Many agricultural crops farmed in the United States aren't even harvested to feed people, they are used to feed livestock. The average hog eats 500 pounds of grains, soy, and nuts before its time of slaughter, which means hogs in the United States eat tens of millions of pounds each year. With that being said, do you believe that global climate change is truly being greatly effected by they way we eat or do you believe it is other causes that are changing our environment?





Source:
(1) David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel, “Sustainability of Meat-Based and Plant-Based Diets and the Environment,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 78.3 (2003)
The New Scientist,“It’s Better to Green Your Diet Than Your Car,” 17 Dec. 2005.