Vegans at Animal Rebellion have called for the closure of London’s last slaughterhouse in protest against climate change and animal suffering.
The operation, dubbed “a garden not a slaughterhouse”, involved stopping trucks from leaving the Kedassia chicken abattoir in east London, disrupting operations yesterday morning. Protesters climbed into an empty truck, preventing it from leaving.
Protesters made sure no chickens were in the truck when it was parked so as not to prolong the birds’ misery. The activists involved said they waited until the chickens were brought in before blocking the entrance so as not to prolong their suffering, but continued to disrupt the operations of the Kedassia slaughterhouse.
Sustainable
Miranda Whelan, spokesperson for Animal Rebellion, said: “We need to build a just and sustainable future where community gardens replace slaughterhouses that kill docile and intelligent animals and destroy the environment.
“The gardens improve the well-being of local people, allowing them to grow healthy, sustainable food. We are asking Kedassia to close down and use the land for things that benefit the whole community.”
Livestock is responsible for at least 18% of global emissions, 70% of agricultural emissions and up to 80% of global deforestation. Slaughterhouses also use a lot of water – an estimated 6 to 30 cubic meters per ton of product.
Today’s action is part of a movement to call for it to be replaced by community gardens, amid local efforts to make London greener and more sustainable. Of the 1.1 billion terrestrial animals hunted for food each year in the UK, 950 million are birds.
plant based
Kedassia, a slaughterhouse on Smeed Road in the Tower Hamlets district, kills thousands of chickens every week. Poultry slaughterhouses discharge a large amount of waste into the environment, which, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, pollutes land and surface water, posing a serious threat to human health.
Local resident Bell Jacobs said: “I’m a mother and I know our children need a space to learn how to grow vegetables, not kill birds. Community gardens will provide us with much-needed green space and social hubs, every day Individuals can meet and communicate here.”
Animal Rebellion is a mass movement that uses nonviolent civil disobedience to call for a just and sustainable plant-based food system.
this author
Brendan Montague is the editor of The Ecologist. This article is based on a press release from Animal Rebellion.Learn more about animal rebellion Visit its website.
