Crazy how people will refuse to drink from plastic water bottles from fear of BPAs and microplastics but will happily eat the dead flesh of an animal that gorged on plastics for years. Our risk analysis is as broken as our morality.

  • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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    10 months ago

    That video is crazy, glad he shared that. I had no idea pigs were eating plastic. I mean not in quantities like that, I assumed some plastic got in there like everywhere else. I am curious how plastics are on the approved list of pig feed though, that is bizarre. I wonder if it refers only two. The small amounts I was imagining since the states have those laws against including food wrappers.

    • Ottomateeverything@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I am curious how plastics are on the approved list of pig feed though, that is bizarre

      It’s not really that strange - these laws and regulations are bought by the industry with mega bucks that citizen movements can’t compare to. It’s just corruption lobbying. It’s perfectly legal for them to just pay the people making the rules because we decided corporations are people too. The agriculture industry gets away with a ton of bullshit through these means all over the place.

      It saves them a lot of money to feed pigs trash. So they buy some wiggle room on the regulations, make a half assed attempt at cleaning it, pay people to say it’s negligible or come up with some reason why it’s okay, pay some more people to green wash it as “well it saves food waste!”, then just have at it. The amount of money they’d spend to feed them real food far outweighs the cost of lobbying and misinformation campaigns.

    • Jessica@discuss.tchncs.de
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      10 months ago

      I’m actually a meat eater browsing all communities by Active and came across this so it’s getting some outreach.

      This is definitely going to make me buy more morning star bacon (ex girlfriend got me into it) and avoid bacon at restaurants.

      EDIT: I was mistaken. It was cross posted to videos and that’s what made it onto Active

  • amzd@kbin.social
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    10 months ago

    Legal limit of plastic in animal feed is 0.15% in the EU

    A cow eats 25kg of dry food a day

    25/100*0.15 = 0.0375kg = 37.5grams
    
    

    A plastic bag weighs 6-8grams.

    You are legally allowed to feed your cow 5 plastic bags a day (as a snack)

    • Gladaed@feddit.de
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      10 months ago

      Legal limit doesn’t mean you should do that. It means you must discard/waste the feed if it is violated.

      Limits aren’t guidelines.

      Edit: a more sane policy for protecting consumers would limit the amount of plastic in meat. The nutritional value is 0 anyway.

      • amzd@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        That limit is there for a reason. They found it acceptable to feed animals 0.15% plastic.

        I personally think no plastic in food is acceptable.

        • I_am_10_squirrels@beehaw.org
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          10 months ago

          At this point, there will always be plastic in food whether put there intentionally or not. There’s probably plastic in the water we use to water our gardens.

          • amzd@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            You’re talking about micro plastics but that doesn’t add up to 40grams per day

        • Gladaed@feddit.de
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          10 months ago

          So if a bag of a ton of feed were to rip you should be legally obligated to discard the feed? This seems excessively wasteful.

          There are also limits on rodent poop in e.g. grains for this reason. Doesn’t mean anybody puts poop in bread.

          • amzd@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            That argument is nonsense as people are intentionally putting plastic in feed as shown in the post you’re commenting on and in many news articles.

    • Szymon@lemmy.ca
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      10 months ago

      Gotta make sure you have a generation ready to die of cancers over the next 40 years to drive pharmaceutical company profits somehow.

    • naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 months ago

      Oh yeah, pet food is fucked up to all hell in the same way too.

      One of the happy side effects of feeding the dogs I rescued a vegan diet (they’re fine BTW, healthy as) is that their food is just food. I can eat it, no weird inferior ingredients etc. It wouldn’t be healthy for me long term since I’m not a dog but I’m not feeding them ash and plastic which is in most pet feed.