AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PROBLEM OF POLLUTION FROM ANIMAL WASTE

About 75% of water pollution problems come from animal waste, and 25% from human sewage. The nutrients in the slurry consume the oxygen in the water of streams and rivers, and this can cause fish kills. Nutrients can also cause blooms - sudden overgrowth - of algae, which can poison fish.

Animal waste - the excrement that comes from cattle when they are penned up at night -  is collected in slurry pits, which are dangerous to life, since they produce gases that can displace oxygen. Farm workers die in slurry pits.

The solution is to capture these gases, purify them, and use them to power tractors and farm machinery.

Here is the website of a Cornish producer who does just that: https://bennamann.com/

Anaerobic bacteria - those that operate in the absence of oxygen - convert the slurry into soil conditioner -  a kind of fertiliser - and biogas, a mixture of carbon monoxide, methane and CO2, which can be processed and used in the farm tractor.

This beneficial technology prevents rain from causing open slurry pits to overspill and flow into streams and rivers.