*Previously Published in Cattle Country - June/2003

The BSE case in Alberta has had many far-reaching effects in a short space of time. One of those effects has been the rapid demise of the rendering business here in Manitoba.

Rothsay, Manitoba's primary rendering company, announced on May 22 that it would no longer render any cattle material - deadstock, beef offal, restaurant and grocery store waste. The company volunteered, at their cost, to continue to pick up all of that product and dispose of it by deep burial at the Brady Road landfill near Winnipeg. At an approximate cost of $20,000 per week to Rothsay, that plan had an obvious finite lifetime.

As of 5:00 P.M. Friday, June 6, Rothsay has served notice that it will no longer provide a pickup service for any beef product, including deadstock - unless someone or some agency funds the project. With no immediate funding source, producers need to look for alternate means of deadstock disposal.

All deadstock must be properly stored, and then disposed of, on an environmentally sound manner, as required by the Livestock Manure and Mortalities Regulation.

Proper Disposal

There are four approved methods of disposal - rendering, composting, burial and incineration. You'll no doubt note that dragging the carcass out to the back forty for the coyotes and the ravens to clean up is not on the list!!

With rendering out of the picture, the most likely choice for most producers will be burial. Some municipal landfills in the Class 1 and 2 category can accept deadstock - in fact, the municipality may be required to accept deadstock for burial. The difficulty is that deadstock must be buried on the same day they are delivered, covered with at least a metre of cover. Most municipal landfills don't have staff or equipment available on a day to day basis to do this job. The producer can expect to be charged a significant fee for this service.

For on-farm burial, an appropriate site must be found. The site must be at least 100 metres from any watercourse, sinkhole, spring, or well. The buried carcass must be at least one metre above the water table, and it must be covered by at least one metre of soil. The site should be mounded and maintained to prevent rain from collecting and soaking into the ground. This task will generally require the services of a backhoe.

Incineration is a good option if you recognize that incineration is not open air burning. Incineration means burning in a specially designed container, registered and approved under the Incinerators Regulation under the Environment Act. Some farms are installing such incinerators - they aren't cheap, and neither is the fuel, but the disposal method is a good one when done properly. A new type of incinerator, the air-curtain incinerator, is being tried out in the province. Again, there is a large start-up cost, but this may be a project for larger operations, or for regional operations on a fee-for-service basis.

The final disposal option is composting. Composting is becoming popular for some pig and poultry operations, and we are seeing some processors give it a try. Composting is an aerobic process that uses oxygen to stimulate growth of bacteria that decompose plant and animal material, while minimizing the creation of foul odours. Proper composting requires the correct balance of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and water to feed the bacteria as they work. The "fuel" is often wood shavings or straw. The compost pile must be stirred or turned regularly to provide adequate oxygen. Temperatures in the compost pile will approach 65 degrees C. The time period to compost livestock will be two to three months. The end product can be applied to land as a fertilizer.

The Future is Now

With Rothsay's deadstock service gone for now, producers are faced with the reality of other means of deadstock disposal. Failure to deal with deadstock properly will leave individual producers open to potential disciplinary action from Manitoba Conservation. And it will lead to a "black eye" for the cattle industry.

Let's all do our part and do it right. We've got enough troubles right now without adding environmental contamination to the list.

Contact your local Ag. Rep. Office or Livestock Specialist if you need more information on the deadstock disposal options available to you.