BERLIN, March 29 (Xinhua) -- Slaughterhouses across Germany continue to release antibiotic-resistant germs directly into the environment with wastewater, contributing to the increasing ineffectiveness of medicines, a study released on Tuesday by Greenpeace Germany showed.
Thirty-five of the 44 slaughterhouses examined by Greenpeace in two German federal states contained traces of antibiotic-resistant germs. Samples taken last year produced similar results.
Greenpeace agriculture expert Christiane Huxdorff said that slaughterhouses contributed to the fact that "infectious diseases are becoming increasingly difficult to treat."
All the slaughterhouses examined discharged their wastewater directly into nearby water bodies and could "therefore be clearly identified as the source of microbial contamination," Greenpeace noted. This way, germs could end up in food and animal feed via cultivated plants.
"Mass production of cheap meat endangers human health by spreading antibiotic resistance and it is also the main cause of mass animal suffering. It destroys biodiversity, fuels the climate crisis and increases world hunger," Huxdorff said.
Germany's Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Svenja Schulze has also appealed to consumers to cut back on meat consumption. "It would help the grain supply in developing and emerging countries a lot in the medium and long term if we in the rich countries ate fewer animal products."
If pork production in Germany was reduced by 30 percent, one million hectares of arable land, about one-tenth of the country's total land area, could be freed up. "Cereals belong on the table first and foremost," Schulze told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) on Tuesday. ■
