Ah, thanks @ibstubro! I was wondering where the insults were! Fluther wouldn’t be fluther without ‘em!
Regardless of what solution is found, or IF one is found, someone’s going to be unhappy with it, and likewise there will always be a cost, either environmentally, cost-wise or health-wise. That’s for certain. As a population, the US eats waaay too much meat. My solution would produce a much healthier meat and far less load on the environment, but it would certainly drive the cost up far enough that some folks wouldn’t be able to afford much of it, which isn’t a bad thing, in my opinion. We could all stand to eat less meat.
The other option already mentioned in the question was to force the industry to build a wastewater treatment plant every where there was a factory farm. That also would vastly increase the cost of pork, and yet the health of the animals (and therefore the quality of the meat) would remain the same. This increase in cost would shut down the factory farms anyway because folks wouldn’t be able to buy their meat. Now THAT’S schitzo IMO, but that’s another discussion!
Unfortunately the US population is so entitled and so run by big business, we’ve got to have what we want when we want it, regardless of the consequences (it’s part of the American Way…) And for that reason I don’t see it happening.