5 Big Meat Companies Produce A Combined 162 Million Tons Of Manure Each Year [View all]

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5 Big Meat Companies Produce A Combined 162 Million Tons Of Manure Each Year

According to a new report released by Environment America, five major animal agribusinesses — Tyson, JBS, Cargill, Smithfield, and Perdue — produce a combined 162,936,695 tons of manure every year. But it’s not just the manure that is threatening America’s waterways. The report also points to the huge volumes of grain that need to be grown to feed animals in factory farms, noting that the chemical-intensive farming often associated with the production of feed like corn and soy can also create runoff that threatens rivers, lakes, streams, and bays. Moreover, factory farms are some of the largest contributors to water pollution, dumping more toxic pollutants into waterways annually from their processing plants, by volume, than companies like ExxonMobil and Dow Chemical.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/06/30/3794632/factory-farms-manure-pollution-footprint/