Share & Voice: A River of Waste

I recently watched the documentary A River of Waste, which is available on Netflix. I thought i would share the knowledge I gained as well as recommend that all of you watch it. I do warn however if you have a weak stomach I would avoid watching, as many of the scenes can be quite horrifyingly grotesque. The movie is about the practices of large animal production farms and slaughterhouses and their effects on the environment and our health. It is important to know about these Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) produce 95% of the poultry we buy in this nation. Upton Singlair was the first journalist to take a stab at these practices in the early 20th century, and through his book The Jungle, changes were made. But that time has come and gone, and now political agendas and monetary donations outweigh the importance of the environment and our societal health. We are well behind the European nations, who already have strict regulations in place and much safer practices. For example, ammonia is a gaseous byproduct of excrement, and can cause illness in humans and in animals.
The European union has regulations on ammonia that only allow 20ppm (parts per million) of ammonia to be in the air in CAFOs, but there have been measurements of over 100ppm taken in CAFOs in America. The effects of these establishments are not only on the food supply and animals, but on the environments that surround them. One fisherman from Oklahoma said he wouldn't even consider eating anything out of the water in the area due to the amount of pollution. The litter from the chickens has also been linked in small areas surrounding these CAFOs to be cancer causing. Additional viruses include e coli, which poultry works are 32 times more likely to contract and carry because of the exposure to waste in their working environment. Even though some people are trying to change the way we dispose of waste and the regulations in place, there is not enough focus on our own country and that no one is practicing what we are preaching.
The Peace Corps sends volunteers around the world to educate people about how they should not dumb waste into rivers and other water sources, while here in America we do not follow these guidelines ourselves and allow large companies to have their way with disposal of waste. The methods of slaughtering the birds themselves is extremely disturbing, too. The birds are completely aware of pain and if they are not killed by a machine that is designed to cut their throats, they are boiled in a bath of hot water that is designed to help loosen their feathers. If you are interested in any of these issues I suggest watching this documentary.