Worker Impacts

Farm Workers Dying in Slurry Lagoons

High risk of drowning or suffocating

One UK farmer

died in a farm accident every fortnight in a 6-month period.¹

One breath

of the toxic gasses in slurry can be enough to kill.

10%

of farm deaths in Ireland over a decade were slurry-related.²

What It Is

One of the many problems with factory farming is the enormous amount of waste that the billions of animals produce. It creates air pollution, which harms workers and local residents, and it pollutes waterways, which is bad news for wildlife and local communities. But in between leaving the animal and finding its way into the environment, that poop is usually stored in what is charmingly known as a lagoon. A shit lagoon. And this has hidden dangers.

Slurry produces a range of gases, including hydrogen sulphide which is even more poisonous than hydrogen cyanide and cannot be detected by smell. If breathed in it can be rapidly fatal.³ Far too many farmers have died as a result.

But this is not the only risk of a slurry lagoon, as there have been countless examples of farmers,⁴ their children,⁵ farm workers,⁶ and animals⁷ falling into the lagoon and drowning.

Too many animals crammed inside factory farms creates enormous risks for everyone.