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America’s meatpacking facilities operating at 95% capacity | AGDAILY

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America’s meatpacking facilities operating at 95% capacity | AGDAILY

In the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, many meatpacking facilities closed down to due health concerns of their employees. After an Executive Order from President Donald Trump declared the meat packing plants critical infrastructure, the plants opened back up to prevent further disruptions to the food supply. A month after the Executive Order, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue applauded the safe reopening of critical infrastructure meatpacking facilities across the United States.

This week, across the cattle, swine, and broiler sectors, processing facilities are operating more than 95 percent of their average capacity compared to this time last year. In fact, beef facilities are operating at 98 percent, pork facilities are operating at 95 percent, and poultry facilities are operating at 98 percent of their capacity compared to the same time last year.

Despite Health Risks, U.S. Military Will Burn Firefighting Foam

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Despite Health Risks, U.S. Military Will Burn Firefighting Foam

Although incineration is the military’s chosen disposal method, there has been little research on the safety of burning the foam. Two studies concluded that the incineration of PFAS chemicals would not be a source of further contamination, but both were funded by companies with a vested interest in making the problem go away. The first study was funded by DuPont, which used PFOA in the production of Teflon. The second was funded by 3M, which developed AFFF in partnership with the Navy in the 1960s and was the military’s exclusive supplier of AFFF for decades.

But some of the scant research on the topic suggests that incineration may not fully destroy PFAS. After PCBs were found in chicken eggs laid near an incinerator, a 2018 study determined that PFOA was released into the air by a municipal incinerator in the Netherlands. The author concluded that “modern incinerators cannot fully destroy” PFOA, PCBs, and other persistent chemicals.