The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.
REVIEW article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Waste Management in Agroecosystems
Volume 8 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2024.1450649
From Pollution to Resource: Advancing Swine Waste Treatment in the USA
Provisionally accepted- 1 Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences, College of Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
- 2 Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States
- 3 Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States
- 4 Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Design, College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Greensboro, North Carolina, United States
Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have led to environmental challenges, specifically waste management. Swine CAFOs generate large amounts of waste, requiring proper treatment to avoid air and water pollution. Conventional waste management technologies, such as lagoon and spray field systems, do not prevent air and water pollution impacts. Research for the past few decades led to recommendations for waste treatment technologies superior to lagoons and spray fields. Private environmental sustainability initiatives focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the food supply chain have implemented biogas digester projects for capturing methane in covered swine lagoons to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, research indicates that methane capture alone does not solve the broader pollution issues associated with lagoon and spray field systems still in use at these CAFOs to dispose of digested effluents. The Environmentally Superior Technologies (EST) initiative in North Carolina set public standards to eliminate waste discharge, reduce atmospheric emissions, and control odors and pathogens.Research has confirmed that technologies coupling solids separation with water treatments to remove volatile organic carbon, pathogens, and reactive forms of nitrogen can meet EST standards.A designated EST -the Super Soil System -substantially reduced odor by 99.9%; pathogens by 99.99%, nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) by > 90%, and heavy metals (Copper and Zinc) by 99%. The ammonia emissions were reduced by 94.4% for the warm and 99.0% for the cool season with respect to a conventional lagoon system. Corresponding greenhouse gas emission reductions were 96.7%. Components of designated EST can be applied to retrofit covered lagoons and anaerobic digestion systems with significant environmental benefits. Recommendations are proposed, based on the collective experience with EST and current trends in animal production concentration, for environmentally safe technologies to handle excess manure produced in the USA.
Keywords: Concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO), Environmentally Superior Technology, Lagoon-Sprayfield Swine Waste Management, Swine manure management in USA, swine manure treatment
Received: 17 Jun 2024; Accepted: 26 Aug 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Aneja, Longest, Vanotti, Szogi and Reddy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Matias B. Vanotti, Agricultural Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington D.C., 20250, District of Columbia, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.