Protect the Ocean, Justice for Abused Dogs, and Deplatform Lele Pons for Animal Cruelty: 10 Petitions to Sign this Week to Help People, Animals and the Planet! 15 Plant-Based Recipes That Can Be Easily Made Keto-Friendly, Elon Musk to Give $100 Million Prize to Develop Technology to Capture Carbon Dioxide Emissions, Actress Kim Basinger Urges Craigslist to Stop Enabling the Trading, Selling and Harming of Animals, Garnier Launches Tool for Consumers to Check Environmental and Social Impact of its Haircare Products, Biden Signs Executive Order Revoking Trumps Plan to Increase Poultry Line Speed. And do you know where most of earth’s methane gas comes from? Emissions from degrading manure and livestock digestive processes produce air pollutants that often affect ambient air quality in communities surrounding CAFOs. Methane can trap up to 100 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over a five-year period. 21 22 Airborne pollutants from factory farms are associated with lung irritation in general, and children and workers exposed to the emissions are more likely to experience asthma, wheezing and bronchitis. Many of these gases are also potent greenhouse gases that contribute to environmental damage and climate change. The US Department of Agriculture estimates that confined farm animals generate more than 450 million tonnes of manure annually, 3 times more raw waste than generated by Americans. (Agricultural sources—responsible for about a third of U.S. methane emissions —are absent from the Obama administration’s recent proposal to curb this pollutant). 3 ways factory farms contribute to air pollution…and what you can do about it: 1. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. How E-Cigarettes and Vaping Damage the Environment and Your Health, 12 Foods to Help You Survive Winter Allergies, Colds and The Flu. According to the CDC, smaller particulates can even be absorbed into the body, causing systematic effects including cardiac arrest. How One Choice We Make Every Day Can Help, Refuse to Ride: How to Identify an Elephant in Distress, 6 Animal Species With Strong Family Bonds, 15 Ginger-Based Vegan Recipes That Are Great for Cold and Flu Season, 15 Plant-Based Recipes Featuring Low-Fructose Substitutes. Because animals are kept by the thousand, the concentration of these gases can be extremely dangerous to the local community. … Factory farms are major contributors to air and water pollution. Factory farms in the United States produce more than 500 million tons of manure annually according to the EPA. This is what it is like to live factory farm adjacent. Please support us! Waste from animal agriculture is disposed of on land in the hopes that the environment will absorb and filter it. SRAP (Socially Responsible Agricultural Project) states communities can’t even enjoy their own backyards or open their windows on summer nights because the stench from CAFOs miles away is overwhelming. Factory Farming and Air Pollution Sadly, it’s not just our water that factory farming is destroying—it’s our air, too. Due to the sheer number of animals kept in these farms and the usage of drugs, not to mention where farmers get the food for feeding these animals. To make matters worse, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state governments have failed to regulate the environmental impacts of factory farms. For this reason, The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), along with other concerned groups, brought a lawsuit against the EPA to have factory farms included as a pollution source … https://publicintegrity.org/environment/factory-farming-air-pollution-pass-cafos Factory farms stink. Today, fewer farms are raising more animals and factory farms are spreading manure in concentrated open-air pools, called manure lagoons. The agricultural sector is the greatest source of nutrient pollution to global freshwater supplies. But something we haven’t all quite grasped yet is the real impact that all of these smelly farms are having on our air quality. 15 Decadent Dairy-Free Chocolate Cake Recipes To Make For Dessert! Birds Suffering From PTSD-Like Symptoms Shows How Noise Pollution Is Affecting Animals, Amphibians Dying Increases Malaria and What We Can Learn From this About the Covid-19 Outbreak, Melting Arctic Ice is Changing Whale Migration. Avoiding air pollution from factory farms is no easy task. This is way more waste than factory farms could ever redistribute as fertilizer, so the majority of waste is left to fester in massive, open-air waste lagoons. Manure Lagoons: At factory farm sites there are thousands of animals confined to warehouse-like, windowless buildings. Factory farms emit noxious air pollutants such as ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and methane. Learn how your comment data is processed. Methane gas is one of the biggest contributors to global warming and is said to be 21 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Low air quality can exacerbate asthma symptoms, making living near these farms even more dangerous. Some of these gases include nitrous oxide, methane, carbon dioxide, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. Then it hits you. Learn how your comment data is processed. The big meat and chicken companies take no responsibility for this waste—leaving it up to their contract farmers to figure out how to dispose of it. The Problem: Water Pollution. Factory farms’ air and water pollution make the population in these communities sick and also have an impact on the food they are producing. Facilities that confine and slaughter the estimated 9 billion animals who are raised and killed for food annually in the U.S. produce a tremendous amount of highly-toxic waste, most of which winds up in our air and waterways – a threat to people, wildlife and the environment. Livestock and their manure pollute our air, too: Manure management alone accounts for 14 percent of all agricultural greenhouse gas emissions in the … That’s a lot of travel and tons of carbon output. Caused by the mishandling of manure, irresponsible animal feed practices and the shipping and distribution of farm products, industrial farms emit foul odors, toxic chemicals and greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. How About Milk Destruction: The Shocking Truth About the Dairy Industry and the Environment, Foods to Eat to Prevent and Treat Dry Winter Skin, The Disappearing Bees And What You Can Do To Help, Yaki Onigiri: Japanese Rice Balls With Sweet Potato and Avocado Filling [Vegan], A Look Into How Life for Captive Orcas Differs From Their Wild Counterparts, way more waste than factory farms could ever redistribute as fertilizer, releases dangerous levels of hydrogen sulfide, more likely to develop asthma or bronchitis, CDC also states that mental health deterioration. Acid rain not only causes statues to deteriorate, but it sucks minerals from the soil, destroys forest ecosystems, and can cause massive fish kills. Spiced Turmeric Broth with Roasted Vegetables [Vegan]. According to a report from Food and Water Watch, a single hog produces around one and a half tons of manure every year, and all the hog farms in the US produce a total of about 167 million pounds of waste—equivalent to the waste produced by half the country’s human population. For ideas on getting started, check out the #EatForThePlanet campaign! The mountains of manure from factory farms can release around 400 different harmful gases into the atmosphere. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Agricultural air pollution comes mainly in the form of ammonia, which enters the air as a gas from heavily fertilized fields and livestock waste. As the waste matter breaks down, it forms ammonia gas and breeds bacteria. All that gas has to go somewhere — and into our atmosphere it goes. Agricultural air pollution comes from both farm equipment and farming itself—the soil, plants, animals, fertilizers, and so on. Like a thick wall of putrid bricks: the smell of manure. Ripe vs. Unripe Bananas: Which are Better for You? How E-Cigarettes and Vaping Damage the Environment and Your Health, 12 Foods to Help You Survive Winter Allergies, Colds and The Flu. Topping out methane’s powerful global warming potential is nitrous oxide. … How About Milk Destruction: The Shocking Truth About the Dairy Industry and the Environment, Foods to Eat to Prevent and Treat Dry Winter Skin, The Disappearing Bees And What You Can Do To Help, Yaki Onigiri: Japanese Rice Balls With Sweet Potato and Avocado Filling [Vegan], A Look Into How Life for Captive Orcas Differs From Their Wild Counterparts. Pollution from factory farms is another huge issue, contaminating the air, land, and water around facilities. Manure Causing White Haze Concentrating millions of animals onto factory farms has a number of negative effects. Gas is about 296 times more heat in the United States most of earth s... 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