Hi there,
I am a truck driver for a rendering company in Tacoma, WA. Each and every day, I make two trips to Woodland, Wa (about 116 miles each way)to pick up a set of trailers that have been pre-loaded with cow guts, bones, heads...at a slaughter house. The gross weight of my truck is 105,500lbs loaded with guts and only 42,000lbs empty. That's a lot of guts! Now, imagine dozens of loads like this each day. Millions of pounds a week (It's around 6,000,000lbs/week). These truckloads of guts go to the processing plant in Tacoma, Wa where they are dumped into a pit that has incline screws that deliver them to a giant grinder and cooker. This is where the word "dirty" came from. And smell; let me tell you...

Fortunately for me I don't have to do that part. I try not to spend very much time at the plant mostly because of the smell, but also the seagulls like to have human-bombing competitions. Anyway, these guts go through the processing plant and get cooked, oils get separated and the meat and bone meal that's left is one of the finished products that actually gets fed to chickens as a high-protein additive to their food. The oils and grease that are separated are also used. The uses range from feed additives to bio-diesel and some types are actually used to make women's make-up (yummy).

The rendering isn't limited to cows either. Pigs, goats, llamas, horses, chicken, mink, as well as tons of meat from grocery stores that has gone past it's sell date. These are just a sampling of some of the tasty treats we have in store for Mike. . I'd love to have you guys come and spend a few days here.

More later,
Joe

This message has been edited. Last edited by: kim g,