Proposed SF Plant To Make Biodiesel From Factory Farm Animal Parts! Help Fight It!

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Eric Brooks <brookse

Sun, May 24, 2009 at 5:24 PM

[baarn] Proposed SF Plant To Make Biodiesel From Factory Farm

Animal Parts! Help Fight It!

BAARN <baarn >

 

 

Hi all,

 

Please forward this message to every animal rights advocate and list

that you have in your address book.

 

Within just a few months, the City of San Francisco may permit an animal

parts rendering factory in San Francisco to begin making up to 10

million gallons of biodiesel per year from 'waste' factory farm animal

parts.

 

I need animal rights groups to join with me in a coalition with the SF

Green Party and Our City to stop this proposed biodiesel Plant in the

Bayview Hunters Point; and to push for legislation mandating that all

San Francisco biofuels projects use only locally sourced restaurant and

household food wastes, and municipal methane wastes; that only local

small businesses, nonprofits, and City departments be permitted to

produce such biofuels; and that all collection and production of local

biofuels take place under the strict administration of the City.

 

Please read the report below and contact me right away at

brookse to get connected with the campaign to stop this insanity.

 

The proposed plant, the construction of which is imminent if we don't

act, will make biodiesel out of factory farm 'waste' animal parts, and

kick-start Darling International corporation's efforts to build more

such biodiesel plants all over the world.

 

Imagine the profitability boost this would provide to the already

incredibly environmentally destructive and inhumane factory animal

agriculture industry; especially in the Amazon where destroying forest

to grow beef is only the first step in the cycle toward soy and ethanol

fuel plantations. Imagine that Darling goes even further and begins,

worldwide, raising genetically engineered hyper-fat animals or fish to

produce fuel. The disasters which have arisen from plant based mono-crop

biofuels would become exponentially worse under such an animal based model.

 

Here is compiled research on why the plant is an extremely bad idea, and

which shows clearly that Darling International itself is a repeated and

convicted environmentally criminal operation, which should never be put

in charge of a project like this:

 

The Mayor and the Port Commission have maneuvered to, by June 2010, take

what has until now been a local community and local waste driven

biodiesel program and instead turn it over to the massive multi-national

corporate animal parts rendering giant Darling International, which

currently is trying to re-brand itself as a 'green' 'recycling'

corporation. See the original community project information at

http://sfwater.org/detail.cfm/MC_ID/18/MSC_ID/114/C_ID/4018/Keyword/grease

 

Darling is the largest corporation of its kind in the world, and it has

been guilty of ongoing corrupt and illegal environmental practises, and

consumer protection violations.

 

Darling is far and away the worldwide giant of processing waste animal

agriculture parts and restaurant food waste. Many cities and industries

depend heavily on it for these services. (Darling was founded 125 years

ago as a joint project between the Darling family in Chicago, and Swift

Meats.)

 

Darling has launched a worldwide initiative to turn its rendering plants

into bio-diesel facilities as an intrinsic part of both its business

model and public profile. Apparently, animal parts rendering to create

tallow is losing value and the recent biodiesel craze has definitely

flipped dollar signs up into Darling's corneas. For a report mentioning

why Darling is economically refocusing on biofuel, search for the word

'Darling' in the text at

http://mailman.cloudnet.com/pipermail/compost/2001-June/008329.html

 

Darling has been frequently sighted and penalized for violating

pollution restrictions, sometimes even after large numbers of complaints

over long periods of time.

 

Most importantly, it was found in criminal violation for wrecking the

Blue Earth River ecosystem in Minnesota with illegal discharge and

waste/carcass dumping from one of its facilities.

 

Darling was also responsible for a big melamine-in-pet-foods poisoning

and recall which apparently was not related to the Chinese melamine

scandal. Darling's remedy was to recall the pet foods, grind them up,

and then 'dilute' them into farm animal feed; which was then sold to big ag.

 

Darling's new supposed 'green' transformation to biofuels production

appears to also be an effort of the company to greenwash its previously

very negative public image. You can get a sense of this greenwashing

theme by going to Darling's own site at http://www.darlingii.com/

 

You can see a report that a stock trader made about Darling a little

over a year ago, to get a sense of the huge magnitude of Darling's trade

operations and profits; and in the final section of the report, the

reporter's reference to Darling's potential for biodiesel sales as its

" hidden gem " - highlighted with his comment that we should " burn it

all " ... See:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/55125-darling-international-dirty-sexy-money

 

To wrap all of this up, here's a listing, via websites, of various

serious environmental and consumer violations of Darling International.

 

Blue Earth River (Minnesota)

http://www.dallasobserver.com/1997-01-02/news/darling-will-cough-up-4-million/

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-62612946.html

 

Melamine Recall

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/08/pet_food_recalls65.html

 

Chula Vista, CA (search in the document for the word 'pollution')

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:FbZhPgS_5-0J:www.swrcb.ca.gov/rwqcb9/board_d\

ecisions/adopted_orders/1990/1997_0040add.pdf+%22darling+international%22+render\

ing+pollution & hl=en & ct=clnk & cd=3 & gl=us

 

Los Angeles, CA

http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/28/local/me-54057

http://www.laweekly.com/1998-03-05/news/oh-my-darling/

 

Dallas, Texas

http://cbs11tv.com/local/Darling.International.Stink.2.849280.html

 

Melvindale, Michigan (search the page for the word 'Darling')

http://www.michbar.org/environmental/pdfs/Issue64.pdf

 

Linkwood, Maryland (search the page for the word 'Darling')

http://www.upc-online.org/wpost/990802/environment2.html

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:X6Zk_i2cDh0J:www.mde.state.md.us/assets/docu\

ment/general/mdeaug02.pdf+%22darling+international%22+rendering+pollution+ohio+v\

iolation & hl=en & ct=clnk & cd=7 & gl=us

 

Cleveland, Ohio (search the page for the word 'Cleveland' - also see

other parts of this report from Darling covering its full scope of

operations)

http://www.getfilings.com/o0000916540-00-000003.html

 

peace

 

Eric Brooks

Co-Chair, SF Green Party Sustainability Working Group

Campaign Coordinator, Our City - http://our-city.org

415-756-8844

 

--

" I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate

themselves. " – Che Guevara

 

 

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