Effects of Slaughterhouses on People and the Environment

by Kylie Grady

It’s a warm summer day You and your family decide to have a BBQ. Your dad puts burgers on the grill. When it is finished you bite into the warm, juicy meat. But have you ever wondered where stores get animal meat from? According to a survey taken by 15 college-age students (digital survey, 2022), 33.3% of the students said they knew nothing of slaughterhouses (see appendix). Slaughterhouses are inhumane and cruel to kill animals that do not have a say in their own life. They have many inhumane practices; therefore, people can contract many harmful diseases from eating the meat and even workers after being part of the cruelty that happens at slaughterhouses have been diagnosed with mental illness.

Animals that are raised at slaughterhouses are treated unimaginably. According to the Organic Consumers Association, the feeding of animals has changed substantially over the last 50 years. As stated on their web page, “Pig carcasses can be rendered and fed back to pigs, chicken carcasses can be rendered and fed back to chickens, and turkey carcasses can be rendered and fed back to turkeys. Even cattle can still be fed cow blood and some other cow parts” (Organic Consumers Association, 2022). It is extremely sad that these facilities force herbivores to eat not only meat, but meat of their own kind. Furthermore, slaughterhouses don't always feed their animals leftover parts of other animals, they also feed them corn, to make them “blow up” or to make them very fat quickly. They also feed the animals hormones to make the animals develop faster, so the slaughterhouses can produce more meat, but the hormones are still in the meat, making the person that eats the meat suffer along with the animal. A few other items that are fed to these animals are parts of animals, hooves, hair, skin, etc., diseased animals, plastics, sickening amounts of grain, waste or manure from other animals, and drugs (Organic Consumers Association, 2022). Slaughterhouse animals are treated horribly throughout their life, but maybe they have a respectable death.

Unfortunately, not only are these animals treated horribly throughout their life, but they also have an incredibly sad death. Many animals have already died from diseases or the food that they were forced to eat, but if they survived till this point, they have a cruel, painful death ahead of them. Twenty-five million animals are slaughtered every day, in the United States alone (McArthur, 2021). That is a staggering amount as men eat around four ounces per day and women eat around three ounces per day (North America Meat Institute, 2022). The most horrifying part is the way the animals are killed. They wait and watch for their time as they watch their own kind get shot, electrocuted, drained, and cut. Animal Equality (2016) stated “Pigs are left unconscious; they are electrocuted with an apparatus applied to their temples. Hens and chickens are forced to pass upside down by electrified water. And cows have their skulls drilled with a special gun, which introduces a retractable bullet into their brains.” All this happens while the animal is still alive and able to feel. After the animal is stunned, it is hung up usually by the back legs, which causes broken bones and tears. This allows for a commercially more productive system because it makes the animals drain out instead of someone having to manually kill each individual creature. For all the pain and suffering these animals go though, the meat that they produce can be dangerous to consume.

Because of the awful environment of slaughterhouses, they can cause issues for nature and human physical and mental health. A case study was conducted on Aligarh, India. Four hundred and sixty houses that were near the two slaughterhouses in the area were studied. The results found that for the residents nearer the slaughterhouses, the environment and health conditions were extremely polluted (Singh, Jamal, Baba & Islam, 2014) All the animal waste and blood that drains out of slaughterhouses can cause many problems for people with wells that live near these facilities. The waste and blood seeps into underground streams which people drink from. According to Environment America, slaughterhouses dump millions of pounds of waste into our water (Weissman, 2021) The meat from the animals can also cause many different diseases in people such as mad cow disease. Mad cow is a disease that is contracted from eating the meat from cattle that were eating the carcasses of other cattle (Organic Consumers Association, 2022). The disease causes symptoms such as personality changes, blindness, difficulty speaking or swallowing, sudden jerking movements, impaired thinking, and more. This disease most likely will result in death (Mayo Clinc, 2021). This all started because we stopped caring for that hand that feeds us: the animals. Along with the people that consume the meat of the animals that are killed in slaughterhouses, the workers are also affected. Studies have shown that people working in slaughterhouses have been proven to have PTSD and more violent feelings toward humans (Taete, 2022). This is a terrifying fact. Slaughterhouses affect everyone It does not matter if you work in the facility, or you live near it, or even if you just eat the meat. All in all, humans are affected by the way we treat our animals.

Even though there are so many negatives to slaughterhouses, they are very economically beneficial. In the aforementioned survey of 15 college students, 50% think that slaughterhouses are neither good nor bad. Some people think that it is an easy way of getting a lot of meat in a short amount of time. And it is. Slaughterhouses kill about 72 billion animals per year around the world. That many animals can feed many people. Also, most people don't know how to take an animal and butcher it on their own. So, slaughterhouses are an easy way to get prepared meat. Even though Slaughterhouses are cruel places, they can produce large amounts of meat in a short amount of time.

In summary, many animals are treated very inhumanly to feed people. They are raised in a horrible environment, they suffer terrible deaths, and therefore cause health and environmental problems for humans all around the world. Even though many people can be fed by all the animals that are killed, there are so many risks to eating the meat raised by slaughterhouses. There is an alternative: grass-fed meat. You get the same meat, but without any of the harmful bacteria in it. These animals live long, happy lives, eating the way they are supposed to and dying humane deaths. Americans live on meat, so why not take care of the animals that carry our nation?

References

Animal Equality. (2016, January). 5 common practices in slaughterhouses that you need to know. https://animalequality.org/news/5-common-practices-in-slaughterhouses-that-youneed-to-know/

Mayo Clinic. (2021, January). Creutzfeldt- Jakob disease. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseasesconditions/creutzfeldt-jakob-disease/symptoms-causes/syc-20371226

McArthur, J. (2021, June). Everything you need to know about animal slaughter. The Humane League. https://thehumaneleague.org/article/animal-slaughter https://www.meatinstitute.org/index.php?ht=d/sp/i/47465/pid/47465

North America Meat Institute. (2022). The United States meat industry at a glance.

Organic Consumers Association. (2022). They eat what? What are they feeding animals on factory farms? https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/they-eat-what-what-are-theyfeeding-animals-factory-farms

Singh, A. L., Jamal, S., Baba, S. A., & Islam, M. M. (2014). Environmental and health impacts from slaughterhouses located on the city outskirts: A case study. Journal of Environmental Protection, 05(06), 566-575 https://doi.org/10.4236/jep.2014.56058 https://www.mic.com/impact/how-do-you-sleep-at-night-interview-with-a- s slaughterhouse-worker

Taete, J. (2022). How do you sleep at night? An interview with a slaughterhouse worker. MIC.

Weissman, G. (2021, February). Slaughterhouses are polluting our waterways. Environment America Research and Policy Center https://environmentamerica.org/center/resources/slaughterhouses-are-polluting-ourwaterways/