Dairy & Meat Industry / Factory Farming / Films / Movies / Films About Diet and Food

A River of Waste – The Hazardous Truth About Factory Farms

by Jennie Richards · Published April 5, 2018 · Updated February 6, 2020

“The U.S. is far behind the rest of the industrial world in protecting its food supply, its environment and the health of its citizens. Why does the U.S. allow so many practices that are completely prohibited elsewhere in the modern world?”

“If we raised our own children the way we raise chicken, a 2.5 year-old-child would weigh 349 pounds.” (University of Arkansas Extension Service)

A River of Waste is a compelling and disturbing examination into the huge health and environmental hazards caused by modern factory farms and our industrial system of meat and poultry production. The film exposes how the meat and poultry industry is dominated by the dangerous and excessive use of arsenic, antibiotics, and growth hormones. And reveals through investigative footage and numerous interviews how the industry is responsible for the hazardous dumping of massive amounts of manure sewage into fragile waterways and environments.

The film depicts the colossal and unchecked industrial pollution, dangerous health risks, hazardous routine practices, total lack of self-regulation, complete lack of respect for land, animals and people, the manipulative advertising practices, the domination over education and academic leaders and scientists to promote itself and protect itself, and the manipulation of politicians that are being funded by the industry to protect it—by killing any and all laws that try to regulate it.

Do we have the political and moral will to do what we need to do?

“We have met the enemy, and they are us.”

Film Length – 1 Hour, 31 Minutes

Film Released – 2009

Definitions

CAFO – Confined Animal Feeding Operation

Ways to Watch the Film

Watch on Amazon

Watch on You Tube

Watch on Vimeo

Buy the DVD

Visit the website A River of Waste

What You Can Do

1. Vote With Your Fork – Don’t buy or eat animal products that support these industries and the harm they are causing to the environment, animals and our health.

2. Vote With Your Ballot – Vote for change, vote for legislators who are not beholden to the animal food industries; vote for human health, for human safety, for environment protection and for animal welfare.

3. Demand Reform – Get politically engaged; send letters, emails and make phone calls to your state and federal legislators demanding change.

4. Share the Film – Share the film on social media, with friends and family, and encourage others to watch the film and stop supporting these industries.

Quotes From The Film

“The industry does everything it can to prevent the collection of data that could threaten it.”

“This industry does not care about this country. This industry is the dumping ground for destroying our country. It treats our land like a toilet.”

“The greatest scandal of modern times is the industrialization of the meat processing industry.”

“95% of the poultry we buy today and the majority of the beef and pork we buy today – come from factory farms.”

“The factory farm model is spreading worldwide.”

“The health and environmental problems created by these facilities are so severe that the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for a moratorium on new CAFO operations. The World Watch Institute warned that factory farms are turning into mini Chernobyls because of the extreme waste.”

“By the end of the 1920s the small animal farmer began to disappear to be replaced by huge industrial farms or CAFOs.”

Water & Waste Pollution

“The land is not a toilet. The current practices are not sustainable.”

“We are becoming the dumping ground for this industry, even though we’re a first-world nation.”

“When polluting and contaminating our land, water, health, air and environment — it’s being done by a Fortune 500 company—CON AGRA—to them it’s just business as usual.”

“The reality today is absolutely frightening, factory farms produce 1.3 billion tons of sewage each year in the U.S. alone, that’s five tons for every U.S. citizens annually. That’s over 100 times the amount of human waste produced. It would fill 52 million convoys of trucks that lined up would extend well beyond the 4,000 miles across our country.”

“(Oklahoma) – The pollution is just terrible, I wouldn’t eat anything coming out of the Illinois River, it’s full of algae from animal farming. The fish life is gone, there’s no swimming, no fishing — nothing.”

“Lake Ten Killer – The lake is 70% oxygen dead. In 70% of the water the fish cannot live. The trout that are stocked in the lake—drown.”

“There’s actually a bill in Congress today that will state that under no circumstances can animal waste be considered hazardous even if it’s toxic.”

“Chemicals, processes or compounds are either hazardous or not. It’s like Congress saying ‘help yourself to Arsenic!’ We know we have an environmental problem with the poultry industry, it’s the equivalent of taking the untreated waste of 10.7 million human beings and spreading it on the land to get rid of it.”

“Chesepeake Bay has suffered considerable damage from CAFOs. People have gotten extremely sick and suffered serious neurological problems due to neurotoxicity. First the fish were sick, then people got sick. It was an algae called Pfiesteria with a high nitrogen load, the fish had ulcers on their skin and were dying from lack of oxygen.”

“I lost my short-term memory, like Alzheimer’s, it was frightening – from the pollution in Chesapeake Bay. The runoff from chicken farms created certain conditions for causing this toxin that spilled over into the bay.”

“Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri – have industrial factory farms and poultry confinement operations with over 25,000 chickens in the barns.”

“Let’s compare European policies and realities with our own — the shocking truth is: The U.S. is far behind the rest of the industrial world in protecting its food supply, its environment, and the health of its citizens.”

“Why does the U.S. allow so many practices that are prohibited elsewhere in the modern world?”

Ammonia and Upper Respiratory Diseases

“Ammonia is clearly emerging as a significant air pollutant in the U.S. that does extreme damage to the upper respiratory system. It can do serious lung damage. Animal waste is clearly causing it.”

“More than 80% of the ammonia waste in Germany come from animal waste.”

Antibiotic Use in Animals

“Arsenic and antibiotics are still used extensively in the U.S. but are banned in Europe and throughout other parts of the world.”

“Every major leading authority in the U.S. has condemned the use of antibiotics that are used for making food animals larger, it’s used as a growth hormone to make them grow larger, faster. They grow faster than they would otherwise. It’s done to save money for the business, but at what cost to humans? We are now facing a future where a simple scrape can turn into a mortal wound.”

“We are running out of antibiotics that will combat the bacteria that are multiplying faster that we can create drugs. We cannot produce the antibiotics fast enough to fight infection. The first line drugs no longer work anymore. We’re running out of options to use.”

“The majority, about 70% of antibiotics don’t see people, goes directly into the animal industry – which has led to multi-resistant bacteria strains.”

“You also find antibiotics in the food you eat – if you eat chicken, pork, beef, eggs. These contribute to antibiotic resistance.”

“From researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Poultry workers are 32 times more likely to carry E. Coli bacteria resistant to the commonly used antibiotic Gentamicin than those working in other areas.”

“The U.S. Geological Survey surveyed all the major waterways in the U.S. and they found growth hormones given to animals raised for food in all of them. Growth hormones are endocrine disrupters and you should never subject humans to these.”

Air Pollution, Odors and Air Quality

“The smells and odors from CAFOs gag you now in rural areas. If this is the future of food in rural areas, no one can live in rural America anymore. Home values are dropping significantly, homeowners cannot sell their homes, people’s health is suffering due to the stench—people are choking to death, they suffer every day, and legislators aren’t listening or taking action.”

“The industry and businesses try to intimidate people out of their homes, they harass us, they spread the manure all over us – they think it’s funny. They spray manure all over our property and community and then they laugh at us complaining about the smell, they bully us, and try to get us to leave.”

Animal Welfare

“Farm animals are horribly abused. Chickens are treated absolutely horrifically, they are the most abused animals – it’s time for us as a society to change this.”

“Chickens suffer from heart problems, leg problems, lung problems – at the slaughterhouse they are shackled upside down by their legs which is terrifying for them, the current method of slaughtering these birds is just nightmarish and it needs to come to an end.”

Disease Danger

“The notion that the American food production system is a very BIG and convenient lie. Frankly, we don’t stack up well against the rest of the developed world.”

“We are the only country with Mad Cow Disease on the planet! Even Canada stopped these cannibalistic feeding practices. Japan tests 100% of their cattle, the U.S. tests less than 1.0%!”

“The U.S. does not have a good record when it comes to the safety of our food. 83% of commercial chicken tested in the U.S. is contaminated with campylobacter bacteria, or salmonella or both.”

Arsenic in Chickens

“The poultry industry uses Arsenic in feed for chickens. It’s a growth promoter and growth enhancement to make chickens grow faster and bigger, and it fights parasites. Arsenic then gets spread to ground water, to manure used for plants, and it’s a carcinogen for humans.”

“There are a high number of children in Northwest Arkansas (Prairie Grove area) diagnosed with cancer due to arsenic poisoning in chicken litter (found near high density poultry farms). Our daughter died from her cancer. Hundreds of children are dying from exposure to contaminated arsenic chicken litter waste that is spread over the community.”

“Arsenic is found in the meat of chickens sold to the public.”

Bird Flu

“There are a number of emerging infectious diseases that are caused by this industrialization of animals and intensive CAFO farms where we cram animals together and cause a breeding ground for viruses.”

“H5n1 has a 59% human mortality rate. This flu is not good at spreading person to person. But spreading from eating poultry to the person.”

“We continue to allow huge corporate farms to contaminate our communities, rivers, streams and oceans with toxic animal waste that are killing our water, fish, and oceans.”