Friday, June 13, 2014

Issue 357 Pig Recycling June 13, 2014

Let's end the week with something a little fun (at least for me).  The idea is to use pigs to recycle the organic waste in garbage as landfills are filling up and finding places for new ones is getting harder.  This idea is not new, but it has merits.

Idea:  The Coptic Christians in Egypt and some farmers in the United States use pigs to recycle garbage.  In Egypt, the pigs feed in/on the food and organic waste in landfills which reduces their size as the people harvest the trash for goods they can refurbish and sell.  Farmers in the United States take food and other waste from restaurants in the cities and towns to feed their pigs (and sometimes other animals as well). So this is basically using the pig to help reduce organic waste rather than burn it, or use some other expensive process to recycle and take care of garbage.


Benefits: This reduces the amount of food waste that ends up in landfills which makes them less likely to be a hot bed for diseases and bacteria from rotting food.  Not to mention that food waste produces noxious gases that once concentrated can harm the environment around them, which may even be cities and towns nearby.  In addition, Rodent problems are also reduced as they have less to feed on as well.  Pigs in this case eat the organic matter in landfills and similar dumps which these rodents normally would feed upon.  If you study biology, more food means higher populations of animals, while less food means lower populations.  So cities/towns with rodent problems could possibly see a reduction of the rodent population.   

This also aids in recycling other materials.  By letting the pigs eat their fill, it becomes a little easier for machines/people to pick out the other recyclable materials such as metals, plastics and rubbers.  On top of this, pigs feces can then be used as fertilizer for crops and even used as part of the landfill to cover up the items that could not be recycled or are better off covered (feces properly dried does not smell, or generate new bacteria making it safer than rotting food).  Also, let us not forget, pigs getting fat means more bacon for us. :)

Conclusion:  This is a more natural means of cleansing food and other organic waste from trash.  It immediately gets recycled and it benefits farmers because they then have access to cheap food for their animals (namely the pig).  An already useful idea, it can be expanded to other animals depending on the waste collected and spring up a brand new industry of refuse sorting (because pigs are not allowed to eat bacon for obvious reasons).  A cheap method to a growing problem of not knowing where to dump all our garbage.



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