fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de 5 months ago
I don’t have time to watch this video but… it seems like a dubious claim.
Feed on some specific farm carelessly contaminated with plastic? sure.
Feeding pigs plastic as a cost cutting measure? Non-sensical.
It doesn’t take a veterinarian to deduce that feeding livestock plastic will harm your profitability.
They’re not specifically feeding them plastic only, he’s showing how any waste food (old potatos, old bread, chips, etc) that comes to be processed does not have the plastic bags removed before going into a grinder to become feed.
He actually shows how it’s explicitly allowed in his state regulations, likely approved due to the efforts of an agribusiness lobbyist. It’s likely that any negative effects to the pigs is not enough to effect the end product.
the microplastics and hormone effects will definitely show up in the meat. Plastic is already in almost everything we eat and drink but this is probably much more concentrated and unhealthy than most other sources that humans consume.
According to this post/study, there definitely is microplastic in the meat, though less than I would’ve thought (it’s possible the meat tested was from a state that doesn’t allow plastic being in the feed).
Thanks for the link, this is a massively underreported issue. Every time i remember how bad the situation is (immune system issues, infertility rates, pregnancy issues, etc) i kinda freak out until i forget about it again so i can stay sane…
this got me thinking as well.
I think the whole garbage feeding law (at least in US, where the video originated) is made to control disease transmission – but not microplastics, which is a relatively new discovery.
Still up to the consumer to protect themselves while there’s no regulation tackling this.
rbn@feddit.ch 5 months ago
I also didn’t watch this video here but saw videos earlier where livestock was fed with expired food that supermarkets weren’t able to sell in time. All kinds of products like vegetables, bread, cake, yogurt etc. were delivered to the farmers directly or to intermediate companies. In many cases the food was still in its packaging, e.g. a plastic bag around a loaf of bread. But to keep costs low everything just went into a huge shredder and was then fed to the animals. Including lots of micro (and not so micro) plastics.
So the cost cutting is not about “explicitly feeding plastics as a cheap filler” but rather “accepting to have plastics in the food in favor of lower sorting costs”.
In the documentary I watched this was described a common practice all over Europe.
WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Fucking clown world
blandfordforever@lemm.ee 5 months ago
Thank you. The motivation for them to do this is clear, with this context. Horrible.