Local Newspaper Highlights Animal Waste Disposal Problem

Our local Mpumalanga newspaper – The Lowvelder - today published a front page article about decomposing cow heads that were found on the bank of the Crocodile River.

This article shocked many readers due to the graphic nature of the photographs, but I want to commend the Lowvelder for taking a very serious environmental issue and highlighting it in a very realistic manner.

Sure, non of us really want to see pictures of rotting animal heads before breakfast, but on the other hand, it is high time that people are made aware of a environmental problem that is threatening public health in a very real manner across South Africa.

The fact that dumping animal remains is highly illegal almost bothers me the least at this point in time. What really bugs me is that anybody would actually go so far as to bury animal remains on the bank of a major river. The pollution potential is simply mind boggling – not to mention the potential for spreading dangerous pathogens to communities downstream.

It is clear that the responsible parties have very little chance of getting away with this. Tracing the ear tags back to the feedlot and then back to the person that bought those animals are mere formalities.

The next important question is what will happen to these remains now? Will the remains be taken away, and if so, will the remains be cremated at the mortuary in Nelspruit – which currently is the only legal local option available as you cannot take any diseased or potentially diseased animal material to a rendering plant for disposal and there are no burial sites in the MLM region that are permitted to accept condemned animal material . The only other remaining option will be to transport these rotting heads more than 200km to the nearest permitted site outside Witbank where this type of material can be legally buried...

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What Are Prions

Prions are infectious pathogens that cause a group of fatal neurodegenerative disease. Prion related diseases all involve modification of the prion protein (PrP). Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), Chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer, scrapie of sheep, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) of humans are the most well-known prion diseases.