Public health officials and agricultural experts say there are good reasons to believe that mad cow disease will not become a problem in the United States. Scrapie is less common in this country than in Britain. More importantly, the Food and Drug Administration is moving to ban the use of certain animal tissues in cattle feed. The agency recently held hearings on the effects that such a ban might have on the billion-dollar industry and hopes to decide this year whether to impose a ban. If you put it all into landfills, you'd have a colossal public health problem, not to mention stench.
Dead animals are an ideal medium for bacterial growth.
Half of every butchered cow and a third of every pig is not consumed by humans . An estimated six million to seven million dogs and cats are killed in animal shelters each year, said Jeff Frace, a spokesman for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in New York City. For example, the city of Los Angeles sends 200 tons of euthanized cats and dogs to West Coast Rendering , in Los Angeles, every month, according to Chuck Ellis, a spokesman for the city's Sanitation Department. Pet food companies try not to buy meat and bone meal from renderers who grind up cats and dogs, said Doug Anderson, president of Darling International Inc., a large rendering company in Dallas. But there are still a number of small plants that will render anything.