Striving For Zero Waste Cattle… Can It Be Done?

When we think about the greenhouse gases being put into our environment, and where they come from, we tend to think of cars, fossil fuel power plants, and similar energy sources. What we don’t tend to think about, though, is our food. Rotting food waste is responsible for a huge amount of methane being released into the atmosphere, but not as much as the cattle we raise. According to Cracked, cattle put out more greenhouse gases than transportation.

Why? Well, because we have them on a diet whose goal is to make them as big as possible. The problem is that this diet makes our cattle extremely flatulent, turning them into methane-production factories. So what’s the answer? Stop raising cows, and have the world go vegetarian?

That would work, but it’s not likely to be tried. However, experts have found they can cut down on cow’s methane production by as much as 50 to 70 percent just by adding a little seaweed into their food.

Scientists in Australia are experimenting with the seaweed Asparagopsis taxiformis, which can reduce the output from the 1.5 billion cows on earth down to something more manageable just by sprinkling a tiny percentage of the weed into the cows’ diets. If the solution works, and is applied in a large enough amount, it could reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions by the size of a large, developed nation.

Of course, if we cut down on our food waste as well, and no longer left tons of food uneaten in our dumps, the combined effects would be huge. And that’s without taking one car off the road, or changing a single light bulb to be more efficient.