Pollution

Factory farms pollute the environment

70% of the organic water pollution in the U.S. is attributable to animal agriculture.

Nationwide, 130 times more animal waste is produced than human waste. Cattle produce nearly 1 billion tons of organic waste each year.

Because these animals are injected, fed, and sprayed with antibiotics and pesticides, their waste is filled with toxic chemicals. Much of it is washed by rains, untreated, into our waters.

Feedlot wastes are up to 100 times more concentrated than human sewage.

Hog farms in North Carolina store liquefied waste in huge open pits, some 50 feet deep and covering ten acres. Flooding causes the hog waste to overflow and drain into streams and rivers. The excessive nitrogen and phosphorus speeds algae growth, which chokes off aquatic life.

The 1,600 dairies in Central California produce more waste than a city of 21 million people.

EPA has identified 60 rivers and streams as impaired due to the waste runoff from factory farms and feedlots.

Gulf of Mexico has a 7,000-mile dead zone of hypoxia (low oxygen).

Pfiesteria is a microscopic organism that produces a toxin lethal to fish and dangerous to humans. It thrives in waterways overloaded with nitrogen and phosphorus, usually the result of animal runoff.

Pfiestria the "cell from hell" associated with the poultry industry killed 30,000 fish in the Chesapeake Bay and another 450,000 fish in North Carolina attributed to hog waste. (EarthSave)

The Pfiesteria piscicida epidemic nurtured by chicken factory effluents has wiped out fisheries along the eastern seaboard and sickened dozens of people.

People who come in contact with Pfiesteria suffer nausea, migraines, and skin sores that don't heal. Cases of acute learning and memory problems have been documented.

The average egg factory produces 11 million tons of manure, which can wash into streams and seep into ground water.

Most of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is directly attributable to beef production: burning forests to make room for cattle and burning massive tracts of agricultural waste from cattle feed crops.

The average feed lot steer produces more than 47 pounds of manure every twenty-four hours.

The world's cattle and other ruminant livestock emit approximately 60 million tons of methane annually.

Every year, millions of unmarketable hens are disposed of by dumping which contaminates soil, or incineration, which results in air pollution.

In North Carolina more than 100 hog operations have been caught illegally dumping manure into waterways during the past few years, and about half of the hog waste cesspools are leaking.

North Carolina and Kentucky have declared moratoriums on new hog operations. Nebraska passed a bill requiring more public health and environmental inspections of factory farms. In Oklahoma, they passed tough regulations to staunch the flow of factory farm pollution.