Hi all,
This is information for the energy item during tonights GM meeting.
Please read.
The Mayor and the Port Commission have maneuvered to, by December, 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. (The Biodiesel Access Taskforce has unfortunately gone
along with this, although a couple of its members are vehemently
opposed.) 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.
This move by Newsom is very similar to his maneuver a couple of years
ago to hand over the City's emerging broadband internet service to the
private ownership of Google and Earthlink; but this project has dire
environmental, and public policy consequences.
This is a quick report to flesh out what Darling is really all about.
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 odor and
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 incident
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 Darlings 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-milli…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/bo…
Los Angeles, CA
http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/28/local/me-54057http://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://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:r7HAypMZt_0J:www.michbar.org/environmen…
Linkwood, Maryland (search the page for the word 'Darling')
http://www.upc-online.org/wpost/990802/environment2.htmlhttp://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:X6Zk_i2cDh0J:www.mde.state.md.us/assets…
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
