Special Event: Rendering Plant Meeting Tonight

Rendering plant meeting February 7

Grandview-Woodlands residents downwind of the West Coast Reduction rendering plant (105 North Commercial Drive) will meet with Metro Vancouver at Wise Hall on Thursday night (Feb 7) to see what further steps can be taken to deal with odour problems from the plant. The registration starts at 6:30 pm and the discussions at 7:00. If anyone goes to this meeting, it would be great to hear a report.

Metro Vancouver is forming a citizens' committee to determine what an "acceptable" level of odour is.

Rendering is an industrial process to deal with animal byproducts. An interesting article in the Vancouver Courier quoted the Vice-Chairman of the rendering company: "We consider ourselves a very good corporate citizen and we are providing an important service to the city of Vancouver," he said. "We process through this plant every year 50 per cent of the total volume of solid waste that goes to Cache Creek and, if we weren't processing that, I'm not sure where it would go. And I think we do it in a way that probably is the envy of most cities in North America."

Rendering is a spin-off industry from large-scale meat production, using by-products to produce salable commodities. There are two different processes, according to Wikipedia, one of which "cooks slaughterhouse offal to produce a thick lumpy stew which is then sold to the pet-food industry to be used principally as tinned cat and dog foods. Such plants are notable for the offensive odour that they can produce and are often sited well away from human habitation."

pic: PortVancouver