Whether it is through providing more than a total of $35 million dollars in research funding over its history, providing technical assistance and educational opportunities associated with worker safety, environmental protection and food safety, or communicating the support mechanisms internally to its members and externally to the public, the U. S. Poultry & Egg Association continually strives to serve an industry that is essential in providing the world with a sustainable source of protein.
One such undertaking to serve the industry is an ongoing effort to work with the Environmental Protection Agency as they review and likely revise the limits on the amount of various constituents that wastewater treatment plants, operating at meat and poultry processing plants, can discharge within their wastewater effluent. These limits, known as Effluent Limitation Guidelines (ELGs), are national regulatory standards for wastewater discharged to surface waters and municipal sewage treatment plants. ELGs are established for different industrial categories, and they are based on different control technologies and the level of performance those control technologies can achieve. The Clean Water Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to review ELGs annually and, if appropriate, revise the effluent guidelines.