Just how much hog waste are we talking about each day, each month, each year? How does this compare with the amount of waste generated by North Carolina's citizens? Check out the poop counter--it speaks for itself.

How should North Carolina handle all this hog waste? See Environmental Defense's Solutions to Hog Pollution.

How does all this hog waste affect North Carolina's environment? Look at summary information from the Tour of Key Issues and more in depth information from the Environmental Impacts Fact Sheet.

What do all these numbers mean in human terms? Hear first-hand accounts from North Carolina citizens who live near hog factories in RealAudio Citizens' Stories.

Where do all these hogs live? Find concentrations of hog factories using Environmental Defense's interactive farm locator maps.

Amounts of waste, nitrogen, and phosphorus generated by human and hog populations were calculated by combining population numbers with information about animal waste factors. Waste factors represent the quantities of waste, nitrogen, and phosphorus produced by an average human or hog. These factors are based on information from the 1997 North Carolina Agricultural Chemicals Manual and several other sources (North Carolina State University, 1997; Battye, et al., 1994; Randall, et al., 1997; Curtis and Barnes, 1989). Further information on how waste factors work is available at http://www.scorecard.org/env-releases/def/aw_estimate.html.

*For demonstration purposes, this poop counter is based upon a static population of 10 million hogs. In fact, NC's hog population is probably closer to 10.3 million and continues to grow, despite the fact that there is a partial moratorium on new and expanded hog factories in NC. Because of loopholes in that moratorium, the state's hog population has already grown by approximately 750,000 hogs since the moratorium was imposed in August 1997.

[Top]