Waste and Pollution
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- Date Submitted: 01/04/2011 06:44 PM
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Waste and Pollution from the Meat Industry
When eating a hamburger, people probably don’t worry about where the burger came from or what was involved in its making . And for the dollar or two it cost, they probably figure that their burger was a pretty good deal. Due in part to the enormous growth of the fast-food industry and rising standards of living around the globe, the world consumes more than twice as much beef per capita as it did 40 years ago. The problem is all that meat that people are consuming comes with hidden costs that have a major impact on the environment. People don't think much about where the meat comes from or how it traveled from cow to supermarket. And if they do think about it, they probably picture a cow grazing in a field in the countryside somewhere. For hundreds of years that image was pretty accurate, but it's not anymore. According Schlosser (1996), there's a good chance the burger comes from meat produced in an industrial feedlot where thousands of cows are packed into an enormous livestock,standing up or lying down in their own manure. This kind of huge animal feedlot operation has made the cost of beef low enough that McDonald's can sell you a cheeseburger for one dollar and still make a profit. The environmental problem in the world have their sources nearly in food production or meat production .The environmental consequences from the industrial production of meat include air and water pollution ,land degradation and deforestation.
Air pollution
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (2006), about 30 percent of the earth's ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, which generates nearly a fifth of the world's greenhouse gases. The FAO concluded that the meat industry causes almost 40 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than all the world's transportation systems , that's all the cars, trucks,...
When eating a hamburger, people probably don’t worry about where the burger came from or what was involved in its making . And for the dollar or two it cost, they probably figure that their burger was a pretty good deal. Due in part to the enormous growth of the fast-food industry and rising standards of living around the globe, the world consumes more than twice as much beef per capita as it did 40 years ago. The problem is all that meat that people are consuming comes with hidden costs that have a major impact on the environment. People don't think much about where the meat comes from or how it traveled from cow to supermarket. And if they do think about it, they probably picture a cow grazing in a field in the countryside somewhere. For hundreds of years that image was pretty accurate, but it's not anymore. According Schlosser (1996), there's a good chance the burger comes from meat produced in an industrial feedlot where thousands of cows are packed into an enormous livestock,standing up or lying down in their own manure. This kind of huge animal feedlot operation has made the cost of beef low enough that McDonald's can sell you a cheeseburger for one dollar and still make a profit. The environmental problem in the world have their sources nearly in food production or meat production .The environmental consequences from the industrial production of meat include air and water pollution ,land degradation and deforestation.
Air pollution
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (2006), about 30 percent of the earth's ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, which generates nearly a fifth of the world's greenhouse gases. The FAO concluded that the meat industry causes almost 40 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than all the world's transportation systems , that's all the cars, trucks,...