Tyson Foods dumped millions of pounds of toxic pollutants directly into American rivers and lakes over the last five years, threatening critical ecosystems, endangering wildlife and human health, a new investigation reveals.
Nitrogen, phosphorus, chloride, oil and cyanide were among the 371m lb of pollutants released into waterways by just 41 Tyson slaughterhouses and mega processing plants between 2018 and 2022.
According to research by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), the contaminants were dispersed in 87bn gallons of wastewater – which also contains blood, bacteria and animal feces – and released directly into streams, rivers, lakes and wetlands relied on for drinking water, fishing and recreation.
The UCS analysis, shared exclusively with the Guardian, is based on the most recent publicly available water pollution data Tyson is required to report under current regulations.
The wastewater was enough to fill about 132,000 Olympic-size pools, according to a Guardian analysis.
The water pollution from Tyson, a Fortune 100 company and the world’s second largest meat producer, was spread across 17 states but about half the contaminants were dumped into streams, rivers, lakes and wetlands in Nebraska,
Illinois and Missouri.
The midwest is already saturated with nitrogen and phosphorus from
industrial agriculture – factory farms and synthetics fertilizers – contributing to
algal blooms that clog critical water infrastructure, exacerbate respiratory conditions like asthma, and deplete oxygen levels in the sea causing marine life to suffocate and die.
Yet the UCS research is only the tip of iceberg, including water pollution from only one in three of the corporation’s slaughterhouses and processing plants, and only 2% of the total nationwide……..
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ollutants-lakes-rivers?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other