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Japan feeds animals recycled leftovers
reuters.com — With animal feed and fertilizer prices at record highs, Japan's food recycling industry is seeing greater demand than ever before for pellets for pigs and poultry made from recycled leftovers.
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- alapoet, on 07/23/2008, -0/+12Clever use -- avoids waste!
- groo68, on 07/24/2008, -0/+4In the U.S. we just fed the animals themselves, they were crazy about it.
- MacEnvy, on 07/24/2008, -1/+1Not that clever. I bet those pigs taste terrible. If you've ever had fresh, homegrown pork you know how much a proper diet (especially natural forage) affects the flavor of meat, and this is about as improper of a diet as you can get - they're eating, like, old hot dogs and stuff. Gross. I'd rather just have my own compost heap than feed it to livestock.
That said, Dirty Jobs did a show on a pig farm one time and the farmer basically did this - he bought up the food scraps from Vegas casinos and fed them to the pigs. I'm sure it's perfectly safe, it's just not pork that I'd personally want to be eating.
- gavinhudson, on 07/23/2008, -1/+4Korea does this too. To the effect that 60% of what's compostable is composted in this fashion.
- djkrush, on 07/23/2008, -1/+5It's all about eco in Japan.
- phreak79, on 07/23/2008, -0/+10With the amount of food waste around the globe this is one of those no brainer things that all nations should be doing.
- StingingNettle, on 07/23/2008, -0/+4NIce. Here in Seattle we are now putting food scraps in are yard waste bins for recycling (we weren't allowed before). I think its just used as compost and not feed or methane, but its a start. Its cool to see new types of companies that can make a profit like this.
- exodouseternal, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!!
- ledzfilter, on 07/23/2008, -2/+5It's [animals]. Soylent Green is made out of [animals]!
- lucy22, on 07/23/2008, -2/+4I am not sure how healthy the animals will be with this food.
- LiquidShield, on 07/24/2008, -0/+2What do you think Slop is? We have been feeding pig this for years.
slop 1 (slp)
n.
1. Spilled or splashed liquid.
2. Soft mud or slush.
3. Unappetizing watery food or soup.****
4. Waste food used to feed pigs or other animals; swill. Often used in the plural.****
5. Mash remaining after alcohol distillation. Often used in the plural.
6. Human excrement. Often used in the plural.
7. Repulsively effusive writing or speech; drivel.
- LiquidShield, on 07/24/2008, -0/+2What do you think Slop is? We have been feeding pig this for years.
- thingamajig, on 07/23/2008, -4/+12EVERY COUNTRY'S BEEN DOING THIS ***** FOR A LONG TIME NOW - NOT NEWS
- lajaw, on 07/24/2008, -1/+3Back in the 60's and 70's in the USA, scrap food from the public schools was given to pigs. This is not new.
- Junkey, on 07/24/2008, -0/+17Japan also eats the animals who eat the recycled leftovers. This is why they have robots and we don't.
- macwac, on 07/24/2008, -4/+3I hope that they remove pork from the recycled food that they give pigs.. same with chicken meat from chicken feed. Cannibalism is known to cause health problems, some point out that it is the link to how mad cow disease started. I have to say I'm a bit sceptic about the whole thing - maybe use food waste for biofuel production instead? At least make sure that animal cannibalism is not the result of recycled food.
- robcornelius, on 07/24/2008, -1/+6We used to do this in Britain for centuries as does most of the world. However feeding cow products to cows has been linked to BSE (mad cow disease) and the last but one outbreak of foot and mouth (or hoof and mouth) disease was linked to infected food waste. The last outbreak was caused by the governments own research lab springing a leak and the virus getting out.
Now most industrial scale and also some domestic food waste is collected up and composted in Britain. - epb123, on 07/24/2008, -0/+3Using the methane gas for power. Brilliant!
- CrudeDarkness, on 07/24/2008, -0/+1Hello Kitty
- str3ama, on 07/24/2008, -0/+1Japan doesn't exactly have the cleanest record towards treating animals properly, and I have no doubt that they wouldn't just limit this recycling process to just food letftovers. What's concerning is that some farmers may throw in other items, some of which could be hazardous. And while you may not care for the pigs, imagine the result of what happens to the humans who eat that pork. They need some sort of regulation system to ensure that the recycled feed remains entirely to edible food.
- dazparkour, on 07/24/2008, -0/+1Heh, this dictionary has "edible" as "can be used for food", so, even if they used cans for food, that makes it edible.
Not being harmful is normally included in the definition. - MacEnvy, on 07/24/2008, -0/+1You have a point. If cleaning products (for example) happened to be making their way into the scraps, certain chemicals and heavy metals could build up in the pigs over time and eventually build up in those who consume them. Hopefully there's at least some basic meat testing/inspection going on in regard to mercury, cadmium, lead, arsenic, etc.
- dazparkour, on 07/24/2008, -0/+1Heh, this dictionary has "edible" as "can be used for food", so, even if they used cans for food, that makes it edible.
- iguanapunk, on 07/24/2008, -0/+3Great idea for the homeless too, giving pellets. Although, I think a lot of kids are doing that anyway.
- smacksaw, on 07/24/2008, -0/+5The Old Man And The Lisa, via snpp.com:
% "What's going on?" asks Lisa, as it appears the entire world
% underneath the sea is being dragged out into the factory. Mr. Burns
% calls this the "Burns Omni-net. It sweeps the sea clean." Lisa is
% shocked. Inside is a slaughterhouse, compressing the bodies of the
% sea creatures into a red mush that is loaded into large barrels. "I
% call our product, Li'l Lisa's patented animal slurry. It's a high-
% protein feed for farm animals, insulation for low-income housing, a
% powerful explosive and a top-notch engine coolant," Mr. Burns
% explains. "And best of all, it's made from one hundred percent
% recycled animals!" When Lisa becomes (literally) sickened by it,
% Mr. Burns offers her some slurry. Lisa realizes that he hasn't
% changed, and that he's evil even when he's trying to be good. Mr.
% Burns doesn't understand what she's upset about.
Life imitates Simpsons. Yet again. - dazparkour, on 07/24/2008, -0/+7That's pretty much how MacDonalds feeds us.
- ShoesChrist, on 07/24/2008, -0/+1Didn't they do this on an episode of Dirty Jobs once?
- Brunofs, on 07/24/2008, -0/+1Yep.
Feeding pig with leftovers from Vegas restaurants. - Hincapie, on 07/24/2008, -0/+1it was a very dirty job
- Brunofs, on 07/24/2008, -0/+1Yep.
- x00x, on 07/24/2008, -0/+4Feeding animals recycled leftovers is one of the ways science research suspects gave rise to the brain ravaging syndrome, Mad Cow Disease
in England, a practice that has been stopped as a result. - MrFurious2k, on 07/24/2008, -0/+4Didn't Judge Dredd have a joke on this? "Eat recycled food..."
- DrJG, on 07/24/2008, -0/+1What needs to be done is to separate kitchen lefovers into vegetarian and non-vegetarian and feed the animals only the former, and use the latter to make compost manure, Most countries that avoid waste do this and have done it for as long as we have been around - feeding animals all vegetarian leftovers and garbage that humans are unable to eat. (By leftovers what is indicated is at every step of the process from harvesting to finishing your own meals.)
- Jaheab, on 07/25/2008, -0/+1We are starting to do this at the hotel kitchen I work in. The nearby agriculture college is building a new waste treatment site that includes composting space for all of the veggie waste from the school's cafes They have enough space to offer to collect from all the local restaurants.
I know this type of thing is widely done by many high end restaurants that maintain their own gardens. These types of programs need to become the norm.
- Jaheab, on 07/25/2008, -0/+1We are starting to do this at the hotel kitchen I work in. The nearby agriculture college is building a new waste treatment site that includes composting space for all of the veggie waste from the school's cafes They have enough space to offer to collect from all the local restaurants.
- umjames, on 07/25/2008, -0/+1I think it's good to recycle but feeding waste to animals is wrong. Let them eat grass on the hillsides and prairies like they should.
I bet you would be pissed if (hypothetically) some idiot came along and corralled you and forced you to eat trash until they killed you to feed themselves. - zomgflamer, on 07/25/2008, -0/+1Ya, Im totally going to do this. Its so eco friendly. Imma feed my pets corns that attach themselves to my crap. THey totally look like corn and eatable.
- abduln, on 07/25/2008, -0/+0Wow, that's so amazing... In Japan they also use water to flush waste away in a toilet... so innovative... This is nothing unique, as others have noted.
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