Last week, a series of strikes rocked the Midwest — shutting down fast food chains in cities like St. Louis and Detroit — as employees demanded living wages. Following strikes months earlier in New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., these fast food cessations draw attention to the industry’s flaws that are seriously in need of improvement.

Pressure needs to be kept on the fast food industry. If the industry is reformed, negative environmental effects can be mitigated and lessened, and benefits to the environment could arise.

The environmental harm of fast food is enormous and destructive, just like the societal harm of low wages and low nutrition. Poverty’s No. 1 option for meals and employment is also ruining our earth, wind and water.

The wrongs of the industry are innumerable and seem to grow every day. Industrial agriculture — the system that creates Big Macs and Frosties — has made a name for itself with animal cruelty, genetically modified organisms, pesticides and inorganic fertilizers, just to name a few.

With films like “Food, Inc.” and books like “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “Fast Food Nation,” these environmental wrongs have been more widely recognized.

Animal cruelty not only causes animals to suffer in crowded, rancid conditions, but also causes an incredible amount of pollution and contamination.

According to an estimate by the Environmental Protection Agency, in the United States, confined animals generate three times more raw waste than humans.

On a global scale, the deforestation that results from animal grazing and feed crops emits 2.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide every year, according to DoSomething.org.

Meanwhile, genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, have caused their own controversy with the patenting of plant genetic material by big business. The environmental effects are generally unknown from lack of study, but could include an increase in allergies and disease in humans and the environment.

The overuse of pesticides and inorganic fertilizers — also widely used by the fast food industry — have its own plethora of problems. Recognized problems from their use include the creation of pesticide-resistant pests, disease in crop workers, deterioration of soil productivity and crop health.

Even the creation of these farm aids causes pollution from the finite resource that makes the world go round: fossil fuels.

Fast food’s negative traits increase by the day, but we keep indulging. The employee’s strike is something novel — it’s trying to change one aspect of the fast food industry at a time. If we can make one change, we must follow through and continue on toward even greater progress.

Let’s do something uniquely American to a uniquely American system. Let’s have our cake and eat it, too.

The opposition has its arguments. If wages are raised, other aspects will be detrimentally affected. Some threaten that prices will rise for the consumer or wages will be cut for farmers.

There are other pathways for the fast food industry to grow and change over time.

Many other corporations and businesses throughout our country can balance their books to give living wages to their employees and deliver a more environmentally conscious product.

If changes can be made to raise wages for fast food employees, there is hope for greater environmental change in the near future.

Meg Callaghan is a senior environmental studies major and writing minor at SUNY-ESF. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at mlcallag@syr.edu.

Published on August 8, 2013 at 3:56 pm