http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2008/sep/20/how-did-chicken-parts-end-middle-road-stinkin-high/How did chicken parts end up in middle of road, stinkin’ to high heaven?
By RYAN MILLS (Contact)
5:21 p.m., Saturday, September 20, 2008
NAPLES — It was a macabre and, well, stinky scene in Golden Gate Estates when a dump truck overturned Monday afternoon on Golden Gate Boulevard, spilling raw meat and animal flesh across the roadway.
It took hours for Collier County officials and Golden Gate firefighters to clean up the meat, hose down the road and brush the pavement with detergent.
“The smell was real bad,” Golden Gate fire Lt. John Handley said. “And it made a hazard because the oils in the meat seeped into the road and made it slick.”
The carnage raised many questions.
Why was meat being transported in an open dump truck in 90-degree summer heat? Where was the meat headed, to a restaurant? Where did it come from in the first place?
Turns out the meat was eventually going to Miami, to a rendering plant where it was to be recycled.
The rendering process recycles animal parts and produces ingredients used in everything from soap and cosmetics to pet food and lubricants for jet turbine engines.
“This is grocery store trimmings,” said Charlie Largay, president of the Miami-based Tallowmasters LLC, the owner of the overturned dump truck. “The material that is out of date or is trimmed off ... is just not thrown away into a dump. It’s recycled. It’s a high-protein product and it goes right back into animal feeds.”
The North American rendering industry recycles nearly 60 billion pounds of perishable animal materials every year, according to the Virginia-based National Renderers Association.
The animal materials come from slaughter houses, packaging plants, butcher shops, grocery stores and farms.
Largay said his company has many accounts in Southwest Florida, and even has a transfer yard in Collier County.
Raw meat cannot just be dumped in a landfill, where it would attract rodents, buzzards and bugs, said Tom Cook, president of the National Renderers Association.
Cook said renderers take a potential hazard and turn it into something valuable.
“There is not a more economical, viable, efficient way of handling that kind of material than the rendering process,” Cook said. “You can bury it. You can burn it. You can compost it ... but there isn’t one of those processes that is safer than rendering.”
But is it safe? Especially if the meat is being transported in an open dump truck?
Cook said the rendering process, which involves grinding the animal parts, separating the meat and fats, and cooking them at high temperatures, kills any viruses and pathogens that may be present.
Even transporting the meat in a dump truck under the hot Florida sun won’t affect the final product, he said.
“No matter what the temperature under the sun, it’s going to be cooked at a lot higher temperature in the cooker,” Cook said. “It doesn’t have to be handled delicately by any means.”
Tallowmasters cooks its ground-up meat at a minimum of 355 degrees for 22 minutes, Largay said.
“After it’s processed it comes out looking like cinnamon and it smells like dry dog food,” he said. “We sell it to the pet manufacturers for their dog food.”
Though industry officials say the rendering product is safe, determining which government agencies oversee the process is difficult.
Largay said his leak-proof dump trucks, designed specifically for the rendering industry, are inspected by the Florida Department of Transportation, and the plant and final material is inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
However, representatives from both the USDA and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) each pointed to the other as the true regulator of the rendering industry.
USDA spokeswoman Amanda Eamich said her agency inspects the animal slaughter process and helps identify portions of meat inedible by humans, thus relegating them to rendering.
Siobhan Delancey, spokeswoman for the FDA, said the material that comes out of a rendering plant, if it is going into animal feed, is under the FDA’s jurisdiction.
“The FDA is responsible for ensuring that animal feed is free of high-risk materials,” Delancey said. “Certain products that go into animal feed might come from a renderer. But one thing you should know is the FDA itself doesn’t approve pet foods before going on the market.
“We hold pet food manufacturers to a certain standard and if we discover the manufacturer has put out a product that is not safe or effective, then we can take action.”
As for the transportation of meat in an open dump truck?
Lt. Jeff Frost of the Florida Department of Transportation’s Motor Carrier Compliance Office in Tallahassee said his agency doesn’t have regulations against it.
“We don’t have any regulations that we enforce specific to meat, whether it’s meat going to a grocery store or going to a rendering plant,” Frost said. “We don’t have anything specific to that. ... We would treat that as any commodity.”
In fact, just like their federal counterparts, state agencies _ the Florida Department of Health and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services _ also pointed fingers at one another as to which is responsible for overseeing rendering in Florida.
Locally, Collier County Health Department spokeswoman Deb Milsap said Monday’s spill wasn’t deemed a public health risk.
The reason a Collier County government pollution control officer was sent to the scene was to determine if any fuel or oil had spilled from the dump truck, said Margie Hapke, spokeswoman for the Collier County Public Utilities Division.
The driver, who suffered minor injuries in the wreck, was charged by the Florida Highway Patrol with careless driving.
Largay said the rendering industry performs an important community service that is environmentally friendly and also helps keep the cost of food and animal feeds within reason.
“Most people don’t even know the industry is amongst them and has been handling this waste stream and keeping it out of municipal dumps,” Largay said. “The only time they recognize it is when we have an accident, which is infrequent.”
