Meat+Impacts

How Meat Impacts the Environment

“but unless you intend to hunt wild buffalo and boar, there's really no green way to get meat — although organic, locally farmed beef or chicken is better than its factory-raised equivalents.” -Walsh

Meat consumption is one of the largest environmental hazards in the United States today. When meat is produced in a large factory setting where the animals are sitting on each other there is no place for their waste to go. Organic meat free-range farms do not have animals sitting on top of each other and the manure is spread evenly on the ground at rates at which the earth can handle. The manure can be used as a fertilizer, but if it is contaminated these residues the people who use this manure are being exposed to these chemicals too. If all farms ran like the organic farm there would be a much smaller issue of pollution because the animals would be fertilizing the ground with no extreme amount of manure being left to be dealt with. Tons of carbon dioxide and greenhouses gasses are let off when raising farm animals.

There is also increasing pressure on land resources because of meat consumption. There is a twenty percent estimate that the planet’s pasturelands will decrease because of grazing animals, but increase the demand for meat which in return increases the demand for feed. Most of this feed is grain and as the demand for grain increases there is a demand for more beef, more land, and more mass-production of it all. Most of the grain produced is used to feed animals instead of humans. I n conventional farming where there are too many cattle on the land and the waste accumulates and runs off into nearby water supplies as well as creating other environmental catastrophes.

Manure run off into water supplies makes animal waste the number one cause of water pollution in the United States.Companies such as Perdue and Tyson do not want to pay for disposal of farm waste and as a result of this runoff and direct dumpal into water supplies has become the common norm near farms. Chemicals are also put into the water because chemicals that have been injected into the animals are carried through their feces and into the environment.



Sources: //Time// written by Bryan Walsh //Food Inc. // PBS documentary //Poisoned Waters//

Images: fotopedia.com fredashive.blogspot.com geograph.org.uk