# The greatest threat to the environment?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-greatest-threat-to-the-environment/395055>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [March 8, 2007, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-greatest-threat-to-the-environment/395055 "2007-03-08T03:39:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Tully\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7ab992/32.png) [@Tully\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tully_Mars)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-greatest-threat-to-the-environment/395055/21 "2007-03-09T13:26:50Z")

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[QUOTE=Contrapuntal]  
Right. Eventually, though, the bottles will be crushed beneath the weight of the garbage on top of them.  
[/QUOTE]  
And the escaping air will rise up through the gargage, forcing up the methane produced by the overbearing garbage, resulting in … earth farts. The greatest threat to the environment is the earth farts caused by the buried, capped empty water bottles.

Will someone please thnk of the children?

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**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-greatest-threat-to-the-environment/395055/22 "2007-03-09T14:15:42Z")

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My husband is a member of [this research team](http://news.uns.purdue.edu/html4ever/2005/050302.Heber.epa.html), working with Al Heber of Purdue University to quantify pollution from the livestock and poultry industries.

> [@Purdue](#):
>
> An animal agriculture clean air consortium selected a Purdue University agricultural engineer to lead a national $9 million study to help the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency establish air emissions standards for the livestock and poultry industries.
> 
> Dust, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and other air emissions from animal facilities are difficult to measure, making agricultural air quality an issue as livestock operations consolidate and more people move from cities to rural areas, said Al Heber, professor of agricultural and biological engineering.

Regulations are coming, but the gov’t needs to find a way to measure who’s doing what first.

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