A recent Reddit post by an animal rescuer who discovered bags of unopened and perfectly edible dog food and other pet supplies in a dumpster had people understandably upset.
The good samaritan posted pictures of the food for the Reddit community r/DumpsterDiving, which had 282,000 members as of late December.
"Peeked in and almost cried. 200+ pounds of dog food. Cat food for my son's rescue cat," the Redditor wrote.
Those who follow the Reddit community Dumpster Diving know very well that many useful things can be found in a dumpster. Sometimes the discoveries can be baffling, like the one mentioned above.
Here, heaps of perfectly good unopened dog and cat food were found thrown out for some inexplicable reason.
Dogs and especially cats are natural carnivores, which means their diet predominantly consists of meat. Therefore, the pet food and treat industry, which was worth around $58 billion in 2022 sales in the United States, is a part of the meat industry.
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🗣️ When you're buying pet food, which of these factors in most important to you?
🔘 Price 💰
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🔘 Healthy ingredients 🥗
🔘 Eco-friendly ingredients 🌎
🗳️ Click your choice to see results and speak your mind
Among the major issues with this industry is its heavy impact on the environment.
For one, there's water.
As the planet warms, droughts are becoming more common. While 80% of the Colorado River today goes toward agriculture, the majority of which goes to feeding cows for meat production, a percentage of which goes to pet food production.
Then there's land use.
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Approximately 41% of the land in the contiguous U.S. (not including Alaska or Hawaii) is used to feed livestock animals for meat production, which is likely a leading cause of deforestation, habitat loss, and even species endangerment due to the enormous amounts of land producing meat requires on a global scale.
The global livestock industry also releases the equivalent of around 18% of all human-sourced planet-warming gas emissions, per a report by Animal Frontiers.
Then, of course, there's money. The average cat and dog owner in the U.S. spends between $4 and $6 per week on food for their furry loved ones. That's around $260 a year.
Indeed, why anyone would simply throw away so much pet food is hard to explain.
"Super relieved to know it doesn't go to waste!! I'm always tempted to go on a mission and collect all the discarded bags of dog food from different pet supply stores and bag it up in big gallon size ziplocs and donate them at the food pantry or something similar," one commenter wrote.
"[This] should be a criminal offense," another person expressed.
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