Animal rights charity PETA planning 'Go Vegan' billboards for Kettering

The animal rights charity Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is planning a billboard campaign in Kettering urging people to go vegan.

Peta is planning the "Meat Stinks. Go Vegan" campaign after strong agricultural smells were noticed across the town by Kettering residents.

In a statement, Kettering Council attributed the stench to sewage sludge, a bio-waste that is safe and lawful to use on farms to fertilise soil.

Mimi Bekhechi, Peta's director, said: "While manure and slurry lagoons are known for having quite a stench, it's the meat industry that really stinks.

"If Kettering residents don't want to live with the stomach-churning stench that emanates from factory farms, the simple solution is to go vegan."

However, the National Farmers' Union (NFU) said there is no link between livestock production and smells from sewage sludge, which is a product derived from human waste but treated so it is safe to use on arable farm and for crops.

A spokesman for NFU said: "Biosolids, or sewage sludge, has been used for many years by the agricultural sector as a valuable fertiliser when used safely and in accordance with regulation.

"As well as containing readily available nutrients for growing plants, it offsets the use of manufactured fertilisers while recycling valuable material."

Sewage sludge is therefore used in crop production and linked to agricultural produce eaten in all diets including vegetarian and vegan.

Kettering Council's Environmental Protection Team said sewage sludge is sustainable, readily-available and allows farmers to avoid using chemical fertilisers.

Farmers who use biosolids have to abide by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' Codes of Good Agricultural Practice for the Protection of Water, Air and Soil to minimise the odour when spreading.

Aside from the smell from agriculture, Peta will be urging Kettering residents to consider veganism because of other issues with factory farming.

In a statement, the charity said: "Unsanitary conditions on today's factory farms make them breeding grounds for deadly pathogens.

"Outbreaks of mad cow disease, swine flu, avian flu, SARS, HIV, foot-and-mouth disease, and other zoonotic diseases (those that can be passed from animals to humans) have stemmed from farming or capturing animals for food.

"The novel coronavirus itself originated in a Chinese "wet market", where live and dead animals were sold for human consumption."

Peta's motto is "animals are not ours to eat" and says every person who goes vegan saves around 200 animals a year from death.

For more information, you can visit peta.org.uk.

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