Every stage of the process of producing meat requires immense amounts of energy that produces plenty of greenhouse gases, resulting in heavy pollution. The energy-intensive process starts with growing the massive quantities of crops to feed the animals, then transporting the crops to the manufacturers, operating the feed mills, transporting the feed to the factory farms, placing the animals on trucks to travel the long distance to slaughter, operating the slaughter houses and livestock facilities (including lighting, heating, cooling and slaughter), transporting the meat to processing plants, operating the meat-processing plants, transporting the meat to grocery stores and finally constant refrigeration until cooking
According to the Environment Protection Agency (EPA), “the run-off of faeces from the animal product factory farms pollutes our waterways more than all other industrial sources combined.” (PETA 2008, para1). The run-offs pollute the soil and water, killing fish and other wildlife. Animal excrements produced by these factory farms, “emit toxic gasses such as hydrogen sulphide and ammonia into the air”. (PETA 2008, para1). This occurs when the cesspools holding the excrements reaches its capacity, “factory farms will frequently get around water pollution limits by spraying liquid manure into the air”. (PETA 2008, para2). It is very common for those people who live close to animal producing factory farms to become sick simply because they are forced to inhale the toxins from the sprayed manure.
Reference list
- PETA. 2008, Wasted Resources: Energy, viewed 1 September 2010, <http://www.goveg.com/environment-wastedResources-energy.asp>.
- PETA. 2008, Wasted Resources: Pollution, viewed 1 September 2010, <http://www.goveg.com/environment-pollution.asp>.
- PETA. 2008, The Air We Breath, viewed 1 September 2010, <http://www.goveg.com/environment-airwebreathe.asp>.
No comments:
Post a Comment