Product Details

• Actors: Don McCorkell, Drew Edmonson, Paul Shapiro, Dr. Robert Lawrence, Dr. Joanne Burkholder
• Directors: Don McCorkell
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Cinema Libre
• DVD Release Date: July 14, 2009
• Run Time: 98 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B002CA68GG
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #57,165 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

A heart-stopping new documentary, A RIVER OF WASTE exposes a huge health and environmental scandal in our modern industrial system of meat and poultry production. Some scientists have gone so far as to call the condemned current factory farm practices as mini Chernobyls. In the U.S and elsewhere, the meat and poultry industry is dominated by dangerous uses of arsenic, antibiotics, growth hormones and by the dumping of massive amounts of sewage in fragile waterways and environments.  The film documents the vast catastrophic impact on the environment and public health as well as focuses on the individual lives damaged and destroyed.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars POWERFUL!, May 2, 2010

By 

Vegan-Analysis (from parts unknown) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A River of Waste: The Hazardous Truth About Factory Farms (DVD)

1) American agriculture and international policy do immeasurable harm to poor countries.

2) American agriculture deprives much of the world of food resources. Corn that could feed humans is fed to pigs and chickens. What wrong with that?

3) Their lives aren't worth living, because they merely exist in a factory farm world of pain, despair and hopelessness.

4) Most of the antibiotics go to factory farm animals, not to humans. This is creating new diseases that can jump species and are resistent to antibiotics.

5) Our water resources are being polluted, ecosystems are being destroyed, creatures are dying.

6) Humans who live next to factory farms are living in stench, breathing toxic air, and getting sick.

That's the movie.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All in the name of Economic Development, July 17, 2009

By 

Charles M. Nobles (Tulsa, OK United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A River of Waste: The Hazardous Truth About Factory Farms (DVD)

"Whiskey is for Drinkin'
Water is for Fightin'"
-Mark Twain

Water, or more precisely the lack thereof, is increasingly gaining the attention of the world's political leaders, policy planners, scholars and press. Indeed, many experts believe the situation is so acute it has moved from one of concern to that of crisis and that such scarcity will be the catalyst for World War III.

In the U.S. the issue of water scarcity is beginning to be viewed as something other than a local problem readily solved by technology. It is a major issue for communities such as Las Vegas and Los Angeles and in Oklahoma, one time home to the director of this documentary, numerous communities are facing water shortages and the state is conducting a long term study of the problem. It is also embroiled in a long running legal battle against major, nationally recognized employers, primarily in the poultry industry. The issue is the contamination of lakes, streams, and rivers primarily in the eastern part of the state and the ill effects it is having not only on the surface water so vital to the state but also the adverse impact it is having on human health. The run off from poultry factory farms in the form of animal waste and fertilizers is a public health issue as well as a depletion of what the world is now recognizing as a finite resource, clean water.

This film is a must have for anyone remotely interested in or concerned about the impact poultry factory farms is having on not only Oklahoma's water sources and human health but world wide.The director traveled throughout the world interviewing scientific experts, politicians, and concerned citizens in an effort to see how the problem had been dealt with in other venues and what could be done in the U.S. His findings will make you angry and hopeful, in equal parts. You will become angry after viewing the aerial photo's of obvious pollution from run off into one of Oklahoma's premier lakes near poultry factory farms. You will become madder when viewing the interview with the parents of a child, one of many it turns out in a small poultry farming community, that has been stricken with cancer and there is evidence the company was aware of the dangers.
You will become hopeful when hearing the scientific experts describe how such problems can be eliminated through sustainable, available, safe agriculture practices and that there are a few elected officials willing to risk their political future by challenging these corporate farmers that hide behind the mantra of economic development every time they are brought to task about pollution that is traced back to their operations.
These problems and issues are not new and surprisingly neither are the solutions. They have been dealt with in numerous countries throughout the world and even in some U.S. areas. What is new is the challenge to the poultry industry by an increasing number of states and ordinary citizens.
This is a must see film for anyone concerned about public health, the current and growing water crisis, and the question of when is enough... enough? Lack of safe drinking water knows no political party and dealing with cancer and other public health problems related to poultry farming and the apparent lack of corporate responsibility affects everyone. With the availability of this well researched, easily understandable, fairly price film there is no reason for someone to say "I didn't realize this was happening." Get this film and you be the judge before its to late.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful ! Must watch if you care about your health and food........, January 31, 2010

By 

Suave Finesse "suave_finesse" (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A River of Waste: The Hazardous Truth About Factory Farms (DVD)

Powerful and strong ! A must watch! Shows how Tyson and other companies are contaminating air, water and land by producing harmful products. Effectively, Tyson has conducted scare tactics and threatened academia, controlled political powers to ensure that their profits are not hurt, but the rest of flora, fauna and people are.