Your Cow’s Shit is Polluting Our Oceans

Photo by Michael Competielle

On the average, a dairy cow produces 82 pounds of manure per day per 1000 pounds liveweight

Source: Illinois Livestock Trail

Dairy cattle each weigh on the average 1,500 pounds while fluctuating between 1,000–2,000 pounds. According to Compassion in World Farming, the dairy cattle population is 264 million dairy cows worldwide. That equals approximately 32,472,000,000 pounds of smelly dairy cow shit. That’s 32 billion pounds of fecal matter daily which the farming industry loves to call cow manure. Only issue is this over abundance of cow dung has many of the World’s Nations recognizing that this excess is actually a toxic waste. Yummy.

We are only talking the Dairy Cattle Industry for all of you Milk Does a Body Good believers. We are only talking about Dairy cows here as the world’s entire cattle population is 1.468 billion head of cattle. Beef cattle create a bit less at around 65lbs of cow patties per 1,000 pounds of cow daily. Feel free to do the math yourself however and recognize that’s a lot of zeros. And a lot of steamy shit.

So what to do with all the shit?

Let’s re-feed it to the animals. An actual nasty process is to feed animals the dried up cow shit. Sounds delicious doesn’t it.

While much of the shit is resold as manure to be spread in fields as fertilizers, much of a farms shit piles windup in our waterways from manure runoff from these farms.

With cow patties having high nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium levels this excess of nutrients from the manure runoff enters our waterways which create Dead Zones commonly called Hypoxia which is basically a reduction in the waters oxygen levels. The oxygen depleted waters kill off most life including fish and can increase algae levels.

The United States largest Hypoxic Zone is in the Gulf of Mexico and is the second largest hypoxic zone in the world. With nutrient rich cow shit entering into the Mississippi River that dumps into the Gulf, the hypoxic zone has grown in size depleting oxygen levels.

As the Dairy and Cattle industries continue to expand cutting down rainforests and other natural habitats, this has created an unsustainable imbalance. Many species of animals, bugs and flora are being wiped out for factory farming and specifically the Dairy Industry.

Beef cattle is already well documented on its inefficiency based on the incredible amounts of feed and water required to produce just one pound of beef, however there are large segments of the World’s population that feel that “dairy cows” are a healthy source of protein and nutrients while being sustainable. None of which in reality is true.

The factory farming “Dairy Cow” is a systemwide Envirnomental issue killing off large quantities of the world’s animal species. While the USDA has been fueling the Big White Lie for generations now.

With a large percentage of our population being Lactose intolerant, we have begun marketing Lactose free milks and cheeses that are still made from….Lactose.

If your Lactose intolerant here’s a novel idea….stop consuming Cow’s Breastmilk dumbass. With the increase in plant based milks on the rise try to substitute with somewhat more sustainable and absolutely more emotionally intelligent plant based milks.

In my best Bubba Gump voice….”we got Oat Milk, Hemp Milk, Soy Milk, Almond Milk, Cashew Milk, Macadamia Milk, Coconut Milk, Flaxseed Milk, Barley Milk”….. and the list goes on.

But for fucks sake stop drinking cows breastmilk and stop wrecking my favorite beaches.

https://medium.com/@mcompetielle/your-cows-shit-is-polluting-our-oceans-2a1e4821d6db?source=friends_link&sk=61c99cbd92fea416ad041178aca76c3e

Author: mtcwriter

Michael Competielle is a Creative Designer specializing in Sound, Brand and Experiential Design.

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