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How Do You Recycle a Dead Chicken?
| Article
# : |
19578 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1991 |
1,870 Words |
| Author
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Donald G. Snyder
Donald G. Snyder is the founder and president of Bio-Proteus
Corporation of Reading, Pennsylvania. |
The billions of pounds of agricultural and food-processing wastes being generated daily worldwide portend both environmental and economic problems of truly startling proportions. Nowhere is this problem more critical than in the eastern United States on the Delmarva Peninsula, a very limited landmass adjoining the Chesapeake Bay. The poultry industry on Delmarva sends 40 million chickens to market weekly and is faced with having to dispose of nearly a million tons of wastes annually.
The main problem, the one raising the most political and regulatory stir, is birds that die in the field while they are growing to market size. Although large numbers of birds occasionally die from disease, floods, and other disasters, approximately 3 percent of the total flock die of natural causes on the peninsula's 3,000 poultry farms during the chicken's seven weeks of growth. Although a seemingly small number, this percentage averages out to a staggering 100 tons of broilers daily.
Most of these dead birds are presently being buried. This practice is especially damaging because the high water table of the peninsula is susceptible to a buildup of nitrogen and fecal microbes which is said to disrupt the marine ecology of the bay. The commercial catch of 730 million pounds of bay fish, representing a dockside value of $148 million, is considered in jeopardy.
As can be expected, political and social pressures promise prompt regulatory action unless some approved field-dead-bird management program is established immediately.
Management issues
Small numbers of birds die daily on a great number of farms, and a number of management strategies have been evaluated. Burying these birds, as noted, is ecologically unacceptable; incinerating them is not only too costly, but is also ecologically undesirable; composting is considered too burdensome; and swine-feeding faces negative regulatory and marketing pressures. A daily collection of dead birds from each farm, aside from being expensive and logistically difficult, is frowned upon by integrators and growers alike because of the risk of spreading disease.
Today the high cost of pollution abatement, especially in a tight economy, suggests that simply disposing of such organic waste in some approved manner is shortsighted and encourages noncompliance. And so it is with the dead-chicken problem on the Delmarva
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