 In 2018 Smithfield announced an "animal waste-to-energy" plan; the company said it would spend $125 million over ten years, along with Dominion Energy, to cover the lagoons in North Carolina, Utah and Virginia with "high-density plastic and digesters" to capture the methane gas and direct it into a local pipeline.Smithfield said in 2007 that it would phase out its use of gestation crates by 2017.Pregnant sows spend most of their lives in these stalls, which are too small to allow them to turn around.