Hog Fecal Waste Lagoon

Warsaw, North Carolina, USA

To produce pork at the low price consumers expect, pigs are manufactured at giant industrial hog farms where they are kept in sheds that hold thousands of animals tightly packed together, in the most inhumane conditions. The tremendous volume of fecal waste produced (pigs produce 3 times as much as humans) is collected in large lagoons, and then sprayed on farm fields for disposal. This causes nitrate contamination in groundwater, and runs off to surface waterbodies causing pollution, severe algae blooms, stagnation and eutrophication. The pink color is caused by the hormones fed to the sows.

The average German consumes 39 kg of pork annually, about half a pig.