Rational disposal of livestock and poultry breeding waste is the key point of rural ecological environment control and pollution prevention. In order to solve the transportation path problem of livestock and poultry waste, a vehicle path optimization method based on improved whale optimization algorithm is proposed in this paper. Firstly, based on the vehicle routing optimization problem, an optimization model of livestock and poultry waste transportation path was established with the goal of minimizing the total distance. Secondly, an improved whale optimization algorithm is proposed combining the characteristics of discrete problem and the thought of whale optimization algorithm. ROV mechanism was introduced to enable the algorithm to solve discrete problems, perform cluster analysis on the results of each iteration, and perform PBX crossover operation and reverse mutation operation on the classes of excellent individuals in turn, ensuring the diversity of population and solving efficiency of the algorithm; Finally, nine Solomon examples and one Solomon example are simulated and compared with improved particle swarm optimization, improved gray Wolf optimization and improved ant colony optimization. The results show that the improved whale optimization algorithm is superior to other algorithms in all 9 cases. In the most complex RC103 case, the solution result is at least 14.64% compared with other algorithms, indicating that the improved whale optimization algorithm has higher solution accuracy and stability. For the simulation experiment of livestock and poultry waste transportation, the improved whale optimization algorithm is 4.9%, 6.5% and 43.7% higher than other algorithms, respectively, proving that the proposed algorithm can effectively solve the optimization problem of livestock and poultry waste transportation path.