The proposed Sanderson Farms poultry processing plant in Southern Nash County would be responsible for the addition of 182 million pounds of chicken litter per year to seven Eastern North Carolina counties – Nash, Wilson, Edgecombe, Greene, Lenoir, Wayne and Halifax.

According to the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE), the average two-pound broiler chicken produces 2.8 pounds of solid waste over its lifetime, estimated at 48 days. Sanderson Farms executives previously stated that the proposed facility would process 1.25 million chickens per week, or 65 million chickens per year. Using this figure, the production at the facility would be responsible for 182,000,000 pounds, or 91,000 tons, of solid chicken waste per year.

That is roughly 386 pounds of waste for every resident in Nash, Wilson, Edgecombe, Greene, Lenoir, Wayne and Halifax counties.

This amount of chicken waste weighs about the same as:

• 404 Statues of Liberty every year, or nearly 9 for every incorporated municipality in the seven county region
• 19,782 African elephants every year, or about 138 for every school in the region
• 3,640 fully loaded dump trucks every year, more than three for every Sanderson employee

Using the same data from ASABE, the chicken waste would fill Lake Wilson about every two and a half years or the Toisnot Reservoir more than three times each year.

These numbers are only from chicken house waster. These numbers do not include the waste from the slaughterhouse, hatchery or feed mill.

Further Reading

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