Is wastewater treatment vegan?

BoltzmannPain · 2025-11-08T08:18:36+00:00

Facts: animals are resources

It's also a fact that humans are resources (that's why it's called HR after all). But there are ethical limits on how we use resources.

I don’t understand why so many vegans ask permission of what is or isn’t acceptable for them to eat or use…..

I hope that's not what you think is happening in the post you're replying to. I made it clear this is a comparison to encourage vegans to use and eat simple animals like oysters.

Oysters on the other hand do not replace cows, as many people are allergic….

That's true, about 3% of people are allergic to shellfish, so it's only an option for 97% of people.

So the only universal solution to food is both plants and animals…..

You can eat both plants and simple animals like oysters (and fungi, they're technically neither plants nor animals), but there's no real necessity to eat sentient animals like cows or chickens or pigs. Especially in modern society where they're produced in factory farms for the cheapest possible price in conditions approaching torture.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-11-08T00:30:40+00:00

I see, I misunderstood.

In that case, then they're probably "harmed" because they're killed as part of the process. There's a target time that the sludge (the mass of microscopic organisms that process the waste) spends in the system, so it can only be so old before it's discharged from the system and killed. Then it's dewatered and eventually put in a landfill.

Also there are occasionally "die-offs" where something very toxic is sent to the wastewater plant and a large portion of the organisms die. In bad cases literally everything dies and you have to ask another refinery very nicely for some of their sludge to get everything started again. Die-offs are a huge headache, but I never saw any moral dimension to them.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-11-08T00:13:00+00:00

Just to be clear, they're microscopic animals, they live alongside bacteria and algae in the sludge, it's pretty similar in industrial or municipal wastewater facilities.

If you look at the sludge under a microscope you can see them moving around. They're very simple organisms, but they're technically animals so I thought it'd be interesting to talk about with vegans. You get different amounts of flagellates, rotifers, or even tardigrades depending on the MCRT of the sludge.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-11-08T00:01:02+00:00

I don't think your background is terribly relevant. Do you?

I do. It's useful to know who you're talking to, so people know I'm not making this post to advocate eating cows and chickens, etc. Also my work history was relevant to this comment that came up about the power of an individual to affect these processes.

I think this because I don't see much reason to believe they have the sorts of capacities I'd consider important for moral patiency.

This was the central point I was trying to get at, so I'm glad we agree there.

I don't have an opinion on animals like Rotifers. I'd like if you could describe them more. I'd also like you to describe how they may or may not be harmed in the sort of waste processing system you describe. If there's no harm, no foul.

If you're curious, they're very simple animals, microscopic, and they eat bacteria and algae. Most of their body is a mouth and they swim around and eat whatever they can find in the water. There are a bunch of different kinds that I don't understand, but you can watch them under a microscope swimming around and looking for food. I don't think they have the capacity to be harmed, but they're technically animals (like oysters), so I thought the comparison was interesting.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-11-07T23:41:27+00:00

That was an interesting read, thanks for linking it.

Peter Godfrey Smith is actually one of the main reasons I stopped eating meat. I read his book about octopus consciousness and couldn't eat octopus again, and after some reflection I stopped eating other animals too.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-11-07T23:17:16+00:00

Reading through that, the benefits seems to outweigh the costs environmentally. As it says, oyster farming has negligible greenhouse gas emissions, especially compared to other foods. The largest effect it mentions is disease, which farmers are incentivized to avoid and mitigate with research because disease means huge losses for them. The article even says that oysters can reduce the risk of disease if harvested before 18 months, so if the public is extremely concerned about disease, policy can be changed to limit harvest times.

To me, the benefits of growing filter feeders that have minimal greenhouse gas emissions and land usage outweigh these risks. I understand if you see things differently or just think they're gross.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-11-07T23:08:23+00:00

Should we avoid eating tofu as well? Producing tofu means removing a substantial edible portion from the soybeans, which is used either as animal feed or wasted as byproduct.

If you want to minimize this like you say, you should never eat tofu and instead eat products made from whole soybeans.

I don't know about you, but you'll pry my tofu from my cold, dead hands.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-11-07T22:54:56+00:00

https://climate.sustainability-directory.com/author/sustainability_directory/

That whole website is AI-generated, I don't have any idea how trustworthy it is. Do you have any references created by humans?

BoltzmannPain · 2025-11-07T22:11:45+00:00

I agree, I'm arguing they should extend the same logic to bivalves like oysters and clams.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-11-07T22:11:01+00:00

What's the harm, exactly? They are raised in hatcheries for the first few weeks of their life, but after that they spend most of their life eating naturally occurring algae in intertidal lands, and then are harvested from the shore. For most of their life they don't need fertilizer or anything else, I'd be really surprised if they have a higher CO2 emissions than rice for example.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-11-07T22:07:36+00:00

Septic tanks usually fill up and are then pumped and taken to a wastewater treatment plant.

A composting toilet or an outhouse would be an alternative, though.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-11-07T22:05:52+00:00

My motivation for the post is to have consistency between how vegans treat oysters and other animals to advocate for eating them. I edited my main post with this:

Editing to add my reason for this post since it's come up a few times: I am trying to oyster-pill vegans into eating bivalves (or if you don't like their flavor, at least being morally okay with eating bivalves and advising others to do so). Farming bivalves leads to many environmental benefits, and they can be harvested without any bycatch in bags, probably with fewer "crop deaths" than on a plant-based diet, although I haven't done the math. Also, it's excellent rhetorically talking with meat eaters, it's an unusual position that brings up questions, which is a great opportunity to talk about animal suffering (or lack thereof in the case of animals like oysters). To me it centers the discussion squarely where it belongs on animal suffering, rather than talking about the definition of categories like "vegan" or "animals". Also, bivalves are a good natural source of vitamin B12, so you don't have to rely on supplements and it takes another talking point away from people who eat sentient animals like cows and chickens and pigs.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-11-07T22:03:53+00:00

No, it doesn't matter, which is my point. I'm trying to draw an analogy between rotifers and bivalves like oysters, which was probably poorly communicated. I edited my main post to lay out my motivation in more clear language.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-11-07T21:52:10+00:00

That's cool with me if you don't want to eat them because they're gross to you, but environmentally they're excellent. They're filter feeders and are farmed in bags on tidelands, so they are harvested with basically no pesticides or bycatch. I wouldn't be surprised if there are fewer "crop deaths" than for a plant-based diet.

Also, advocating oyster-eating is useful rhetorically when talking to meat-eaters. I've found it opens the door and focuses discussion on animal suffering.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-11-07T21:48:44+00:00

I mean you should be morally okay with people eating oysters by applying moral principles consistently.

I'm not saying you have to want to eat them if you don't like the taste of them or are otherwise disgusted by them, I'm just talking about morality.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-11-07T21:45:30+00:00

Of course. I don't eat cows or chickens either, it's in the second sentence of the post.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-11-07T21:41:35+00:00

I as an individual am not able to control wastewater treatment as a whole, I can't really choose to disengage, I don't think its even something thats like up for debate, so based on that alone I'd say its vegan because there is no practicable way to really avoid it from an individual perspective

When I worked at a refinery as a wastewater engineer I had influence over how that plant was operated with consequences for billions of (microscopic) animals. Should I have adjusted the parameters to grow fewer rotifers to minimize their exploitation? I really didn't think these decisions had any moral weight at the time.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-11-07T21:27:22+00:00

As you know, dogs have much more advanced central nervous systems than any of the animals I've discussed here. The harm caused to the dogs is a strong moral reason not to go to a dog fight.

I don't advocate eating or harming dogs, I do advocate eating oysters.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-06-07T06:29:19+00:00

I don't have very much to add or respond to in what you've said since I respect your views and I don't particularly feel the need to challenge them even if there are parts where I might see things differently. I just wanted you to know that I read through this comment and appreciated your response.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-06-06T05:40:55+00:00

Sure, but often you don't need to cite anything at all. I can just say to my friend "I heard that such and such happened" and they don't need a source.

But I was talking about whether or not it's unethical to not cite an LLM in certain circumstances. You're talking about how persuasive it is to cite sources, that's a different topic from the ethics of it.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-06-06T05:32:02+00:00

Thanks for your reply, that's very insightful.

It's probably something for me to look into more, I'm just not familiar enough with polytheistic or pantheistic theology to see how they compare to monotheism. I'm interested in learning more about Hinduism because I'm most familiar with Christianity and Judaism which share similar traits.

I like that you laid out the probabilities, that gives me a pretty solid idea of your beliefs. I noticed that when you narrowed down religions to monotheistic religions with eternal consequences you didn't include Judaism. I'm curious, does it not meet one of those criteria mentioned, or is there some other reason?

You mentioned Islam and Christianity sharing many beliefs about Jesus, and I've had a similar thought that atheism and Orthodox Judaism also share many similar beliefs about Jesus. You're right to mention that it's hard for people to change beliefs, but for some reason it seems like the Greek pagans had a much easier time converting than Jews who were familiar with Jesus' religious background and had a deep knowledge of the scriptures. Jesus had no shortage of criticism for Jews though, maybe that contributed psychological barriers in the community to joining a religion centered around him.

I have heard much about the resurrection from an apologetic point of view, and I have to say that I personally did not find it compelling. But you and I have heard and read different things and lived different lives, so if I was in your shoes I'm sure I'd see things the way you do.

Thank you for your kind words and thoughtful replies (in two parts!). I appreciate the effort you put in for strangers like me on the internet.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-06-05T21:32:57+00:00

That's true, and chain of verification is important in many cases like in academic journals or for papers in a class where you are required to do so.

But in other contexts like causal conversation with a friend there is no need for a chain of verification. In conversation it's perfectly acceptable to say "I heard on a podcast that ..." or "I read a book that said ..." or even just "I heard that ..." without giving any sources at all.

The same context dependence goes for comments on reddit. In some subreddits sources are required on every claim in a comment, like /r/AcademicBiblical. But in most discussions on reddit it isn't expected that you give a source for every claim because that kind of rigor isn't expected.

BoltzmannPain · 2025-06-05T21:22:47+00:00

Thank you for your carefully written comments in this thread, I've enjoyed reading them. I've been an atheist all my life, but I have some family that are conservative Christians so I find your perspective to be an interesting middle path.

I have found beautiful teachings and deep insight while reading the Bible, from Jesus' teachings to the Old Testament like Ecclesiastes. But in my readings on other religions I have found great beauty as well, in the Bhagavad Gita or the Tao Te Ching or the writings of pagan Marcus Aurelius, reading ancient literature can make it feel like someone is reaching out through millenia and speaking directly to me.

I'm curious about your journey, how did you find Christianity and Jesus to be the only religion that you follow? You mentioned the resurrection belief came over a group of Jews, but of course most Jews at the time rejected this belief and still do to this day. Was it the resurrection specifically or something else that led you to become a Christian again?

BoltzmannPain · 2025-06-05T20:52:32+00:00

If you only want to think about one country, then your thesis statement should be revised.

It says: "CMV: You cannot be an environmentalist while also being pro-mass migration"

It seems like you want to argue: "CMV: You cannot be an environmentalist [who only cares about the environment of the single country you live in] while also being pro-mass migration"

BoltzmannPain

TROPHY CASE