Pyres of animals being burnt in the U.K. because of the foot-and-mouth disease are producing more dioxin than all of the country’s factories combined. The burning has put the country on pace to double its annual dioxin emissions. Meanwhile, the government has admitted that it hasn’t conducted an assessment of the health effects of the burning and it isn’t systematically monitoring the pollution coming from the pyres. Environmentalists fear that the pollution from the pyres will make nearby farmland unusable for years to come. Some residents are up in arms over the burning; in one instance about two weeks ago, protesters caused the government to abandon a pyre designed to burn 3,000 animals a day.
