Tyson Foods is one of the world's biggest meat and poultry producers and according

to the Union of Concerned Scientists it's also a major polluter in the United States.

A report entitled Waste Deep says that in the five years between 2018 and 2022,

Tyson plants dumped more than 371 million pounds of pollutants into U.S. waterways. More than half of that was in three

states, Nebraska, Illinois, and Missouri. In response, Tyson defends its wastewater

treatment program which it says complies with regulations.

Stacy Woods is research director for the Union of Concerned Scientists and one of the

authors of the report.

Stacy, what pollutants are we talking about here and what effect do they have on the environment, on wildlife, and on humans?

Our report found that Tyson Foods dumped over 25 different pollutants into waterways in 17 states.

This pollution included nitrogen, including ammonia,

and phosphorus.

And we're particularly concerned about those because when there's too much nitrogen and

phosphorus in our waterways it can cause harmful algal blooms that can kill fish and other aquatic

wildlife and also when people live can kill fish and other aquatic wildlife.

And also, when people live close to these harmful algal blooms,

they can experience things like asthma attacks and bronchitis.

And these are all byproducts of meat processing?

It comes from the wastewater in the meat processing.

Wastewater is produced in these meat processing plants

when folks working in these plants rinse off dead animal carcasses when they

clean meat products and when they rinse down these industrial equipment.

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