Why Does Morgan Spurlock Hate Recycling?

Last night's episode of Spurlock's TV show was called "Off the Grid." It featured a yuppie-ish, "wired," SUV-owning couple who spent 30 days on a commune, back-to-basics farm in Missouri. The lesson we were to take from the show, I guess, is that our consumer culture is overly wasteful. As Spurlock explains on his blog:

On tonight's show, we take a couple of all American consumers away from their daily lives of consumption and move them "off the grid" to an eco-village in Missouri called Dancing Rabbit.

You guys are gonna love Vito and Johari (the two people who go to the village), be on the lookout for the dolls ... its one of the funniest things in the whole show and one of those things that we could never plan.

ALSO - the word of the day is Humanure ... you'll understand after you watch tonight.

BEST PART OF THE SHOW - The farm that recycles all the manure from cows to create methane gas that he uses not only to power his entire farm, but enough energy to power 70 homes around him! How many feedlots and farms are there in the US? This should be done everywhere (not only is it giving off electricity en masse, it also kills the shit smell that permeates most massive farms.)

This kind of praise for earthy commune farms is pretty typical. We're told how nothing gets discarded, and everything's fully consumed, recycled, and conserved -- in this case, apparently, even solid human waste.

Communes and Luddite farms are fine, so long as we approach them with the understanding that they are, at heart, parasitic. They may shun technology, markets, and commerce but technology, markets, and commerce make it possible for them to exist. They aren't applicable in the macro. That is, if we all lived this way, we'd all starve.

But that's a little beside the point of this post. This post is actually about recycling. Spurlock seems to be rather fond of it. At least in some contexts. But his fondness for the communal farm is hard to explain in light of the way he exploits and mischaracterizes the rendering industry in his book. I suppose the intent in his book is take cheap shots at the cattle industry. The intent of the TV show is to take shots at consumer culture. But the two positions aren't consistent. Here's why:

Spurlock writes:

In an amazing display of collective insanity, the meat producers of this country are feeding all sorts of animals to the animals they feed to us. Dead pigs and dead horses are ground up into cattle feed, and so are dead chickens. A lot of chicken manure gets mixed up into the feed in the process, so the cows are not only eating chicken, but chicken shit, which can spread salmonella, tapeworms, and chemicals like arsenic. Not only are cows fed dead chickens, but chickens are fed dead cows (Cue "The Circle of Life" from The Lion King).

You want to hear something really disgusting? The cattle industry buys millions of dead cats and dogs from animal shelters every year, then feeds them to the cattle who end up in your burger.

Yeeecccchhhh!!.

Oh, and the do the same with roadkill.

Is your mouth watering now?

This is not only disgusting, it's utter madness. It's the new, insane version of the old "circle of life." It passes new types of diseases around and around the food chain. And at every pass, we make some of those strains of disease stronger and stronger, because we keep bombing them with antibiotics that kill of some of them but only make the survivors and their offspring more resistant. And then they pass through the whole cycle again.

The FDA has regulated some of this and issued recommendations on certain points, but the basic facts are as I just told you. (p. 106)

No, they aren't.

The process of using animal waste for other purposes is called "rendering." For the uninitiated it is, to be sure, an ugly process. But then, who would have thought spreading animal waste over the ground where vegetables grow would be a good idea? We've come to accept it because we're familiar with it, and because it works. It's the main way organic vegetables are grown, and Spurlock's awfully fond of organic food in his book.

But let's get back to rendering. When Spurlock writes that some animals are "ground up" into cattle feed, he's oversimplifying the rendering process to the point of dishonesty. Here's what actually happens:

The "raw materials" -- by-products from slaughterhouses, mostly -- are pulverized down to a fine grain, which is then cooked at temperatures between 240 and 290 degrees, Fahrenheit. That's plenty hot to kill off all of the bacteria, protozoa, viruses, and parasites. The stuff is cooked at those temperatures until it breaks down into basic nutrient building blocks -- protein, water, and fat. At this point, the protein and fat are separated, and the excess water is evaporated. The protein and fat are stored separately. The protein is dried. The fat is further separated. Some is processed further, some is sold to other industries.

About 80% of the dried protein from rendering plants is eventually used to fortify animal feed. The fat is used for a variety of things. Much of it is used to make soap, or as an additive to lotions, creams, and makeup. Some if it is turned into grease -- for lubricating automobiles and other heavy machinery. Some is used to make artificial rubber. There's some research now that may find ways to use it for natural biofuel. A very small percentage of the highest-grade tallow is used for flavoring in food we eat.

Rendering is recycling. In fact, it's a much more efficient, productive, useful way of recycling than, for example, putting your bottles, cans, and paper in separate bins at the end of the driveway each week. Not only does rendering turn waste into usable consumer products and put fat and protein to new uses, it safely eradicates between 40 and 50 percent of post-slaughter animal waste. It breaks that waste down, kills off pathogens, and puts it to new uses. Were it not for rendering, we'd have twice as many cow, pig, and chicken remains we'd need to find something to do with -- likely disposal in a landfill.

Contrary to Spurlock's claims, only a very few rendering firms still process dog and cat carcasses or roadkill. None of these firms sell that waste domestically, and none sell it for livestock feed. Of course, in terms of safety, there's no reason they shouldn't. But most have stopped precisely because people like Spurlock have fueled public queasiness about the process. Instead, carcasses from vet offices and animal shelters are now generally sent to landfills. So much for recycling.

Spurlock seems to be in awe of commune farms that find a use for everything, even products most of us consider disgusting, like human feces. But when industry does the same thing on a larger scale, Spurlock is not only outraged, he distorts the actual process of rendering to exaggerate the "ick" factor. For Spurlock, when anti-consumerists recycle biomass, it's something to be celebrated. When industry does it, it's something to be vilified.

Comments

[Anonymous Joe]

"Communes and Luddite farms are fine, so long as we approach them
with the understanding that they are, at heart, parasitic."

This is a peculiar assertion. How are they parasitic? If a farm
produces more than it consumes, then its not parasitic. They may have
a lower break even point than a typical farm because of reuse of
resources.

I don't know enough to claim that on the average your "Luddite" farms
take more than they make, but I don't believe thats what your saying.

This slam is off topic for M.S. Watch anyway.

Also, maybe italic and paragraph tags could be left in comments?

[Boyd Durkin]

Parasitic in that Luddite farms do not produce many of the things, if you are honest, you find useful. Healthcare is the primary example I use. The hippie farmer benefits from the big city doctor using big city surgical equipment and big city training to operate on his child if injured.

A secondary example is National Defense. Compare a self-sufficient farm in Vermont to a self-sufficient farm in Nairobi and you'll get the idea. Now if you want to enjoy the lifestyle of a Nairobi farmer, you'll likely have a harsh 30 year existence before you pass to the big pasture in the sky, not the bucolic Vermont-hippie existence.

[Brian]

Parasitic might not be the right word but on reflection I am not sure what is.

A commune can support itself with few inputs from the outside. But Boyd is right - absent a wealthy society the people living that way are doomed to a miserable, but short, life.

Health care is only one aspect - education, defense against predation (human and animal) and so on are others.

[Anonymos Joe]

Boyd wrote: "Parasitic in that Luddite farms do not produce many of
the things, if you are honest, you find useful. Healthcare is the
primary example I use. The hippie farmer benefits from the big city
doctor using big city surgical equipment and big city training to
operate on his child if injured."

Agreed, though I'm not sure that they any more parasitic (in terms of
the things I honestly find useful) than the a large segment of the
rest of the population. E.g. plastic surgeons, traditional farmers
who survive on subsidies, classical musicians, marketing people, meter
maids, etc. Not that other people may find extremely necessary, they just
don't do anything for me.

Boyd wrote: "A secondary example is National Defense. Compare a
self-sufficient farm in Vermont to a self-sufficient farm in Nairobi
and you'll get the idea. Now if you want to enjoy the lifestyle of a
Nairobi farmer, you'll likely have a harsh 30 year existence before
you pass to the big pasture in the sky, not the bucolic Vermont-hippie
existence."

These examples are less clear to me. I guess your assuming that a
luddite farm doesn't sell much and doesn't contrib much to the tax
base and thus much to National Defense. Dunno enough to comment on how
these actual farms work (or what they pay) to say anything useful.

So if the Vermont farmer died at 30, you wouldn't consider him as
parasitic because he had a lower amortized cost to the rest of the
world?

Brian wrote: "A commune can support itself with few inputs from the
outside. But Boyd is right - absent a wealthy society the people
living that way are doomed to a miserable, but short, life."

Health care is only one aspect - education, defense against predation
(human and animal) and so on are others."

Again this seems true of almost all groups. If in a poor society, you
are not parasitic and contribing far more than you take, then you will
still be "doomed to a miserable, but short life"

[labrat]

The problem with rendering is that it cannot stop transmission of prions and other infectious proteinous particles- they easily refold after exposure to high temperatures and readily contrbute to misfolding of other, native proteins. Spurlock may be inane in suggesting that feeding cattle back to cattle is gross, but the fact that the nation's meat based food supply is constantly exposed to various protein based diseases without any form of testing until after the animal has developed it is quite dead-on and alarming. Whether the prions arise from sheep and make a species jump, or naturally in cows themselves, the sheer quantity of rendered processed meat that the animals get exposed to guarantees that Britian's Mad Cow epidemic will (not may) happen sometime soon in the US.

[Radley Balko]

Labrat,

True, but rendering plants don't utilize ruminant brain or nervous system tissue, where BSE prions generally reside. What's more, rendering actually makes any prions that may slip through less active and likely to cause problems later.

Even in Britain, there have been just 146 cases of human-form mad cow. That's hardly an epidemic.

It's a stretch to say that the U.S. meat supply is constantly exposed to protein-based diseases. There has yet to be a single case of human Mad Cow contracted from American meat. This from billions and billions of pounds of rendered biomass. The odds of any one person contracting a fatal disease from rendering are near infintismal. We take far greater risks every hour of every day without much thought at all.

Spurlock's aim here was scaremongering and nausea induction. The latter is unnecessary. The former simply isn't supported by the evidence.

AJ -- My point was merely to point out that if we all adopted this lifestyle, we'd all be very hungry very quickly. These people were portrayed as living "off the grid" -- that is, independent of and in spite of consumer society. That's their perogative. But they're still dependent on the very consumer society they loathe. Without it, they couldn't live the lifestyle they've chosen.

Perhaps "parasitic" wasn't the right word.

[Apophenious]

Regardless of the appropriateness of the term "parasitic," RB certainly seems to have hit on a good point. On a large scale, it would seem quite infeasible to have dancing rabbit style communes all over the place: someone has to make the photovoltaic cells to provide electricity, someone has to make (or render, perhaps?) and use the large quantities of vegetable oil they recycle for fuel, among other things. These activities require much electric power (not to mention well-honed / well-educated brainpower), resources I imagine would not be in great supply on a commune that runs on biomass and scrapes by at a virtually subsistence level. (Who has the luxury for full-time school when you must spend the bulk of your time growing vegetables to eat?)

While the above would also hold true for classical musicians and consultants, in my experience those two categories of people do not exude the sheer self-righteousness and moral superiority that Spurlock and his Dancing Rabbit comrades do. Nor, for that matter, do musicians and consultants try to convert others to their lifestyle.

Finally, if everyone lived on an eco-commune, how would they make money to buy photovoltaic cells? You would have to produce a lot of surplus vegetables to purchase that sort of sophisticated equipment, especially since everyone at every other commune grows and cells vegetables too, thus depressing the price.

[Capt Vee]

"Britian's Mad Cow epidemic will (not may) happen sometime soon in the US."

The problem is that Britain's Mad Cow epidemic hasn't happened in Britain yet. A grand total of 150 people have died from vCJD (the disease associated with eating infected beef) 1995-2005.

While that's a shame for those people, ina country of over 60 million, that hardly qualifies as an epidemic of any sort. Booze kills far more in a good month. Indeed three to four times as many people die from the 'rare' disease of CJD which is NOT caused by ingesting BSE infected cattle, but occurs naturally in one out of every million or so people.

http://www.cjd.ed.ac.uk/figures.htm

Finally, if we have indeed identified the cuplrit as eating BSE infected beef (and there is still some debate as to whether we have), the steps we have taken should either eliminate or drastically reduce the chances for cattle and human transition of the linked diseases (BSE and vCJD).

[yhf074]

Parasitic is an accurate description of this farm (Dancing Rabbit). It appears most of their land is in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), therefore the federal government is paying them to NOT farm the land.

[Anonymous Joe]

Apophenious wrote: "While the above would also hold true for classical musicians and
consultants, in my experience those two categories of people do not
exude the sheer self-righteousness and moral superiority that Spurlock
and his Dancing Rabbit comrades do. Nor, for that matter, do musicians
and consultants try to convert others to their lifestyle."

Ok, so you find hippie farmers self-righteous and arrogant. What does
that have to do with the fact that this farming is impractical on a
large scale? So if they were not asses, then all of a sudden your
opinion about the (mis)use of their resources and energies would
change?

Apophenious wrote: "Finally, if everyone lived on an eco-commune, how would they make
money to buy photovoltaic cells? You would have to produce a lot of
surplus vegetables to purchase that sort of sophisticated equipment,
especially since everyone at every other commune grows and cells
vegetables too, thus depressing the price."

Again, why is this argument not applicable to any (hyperbolically)
large group of homogenous people?

[Marla]

"They aren't applicable in the macro. That is, if we all lived this way, we'd all starve."

Perhaps so, but I consider these places to be like research labs - we won't discover what WILL work for larger society unless we're actively looking.

[Evan Williams]

"Again, why is this argument not applicable to any (hyperbolically)
large group of homogenous people?"

AnonJoe: it IS applicable; however, those "large groups of homogenous people" don't make self-righteous claims of autonomy from the "evil consumer culture". The commune farmers DO. Why would those other groups of people need to argue against something that they never asserted in the first place?

[Anonymous Joe]

Evan Williams wrote: "it IS applicable; however, those "large groups
of homogenous people" don't make self-righteous claims of autonomy
from the "evil consumer culture". The commune farmers DO. Why would
those other groups of people need to argue against something that they
never asserted in the first place?"

I keep pointing this out because this is a 'Morgan Spurlock' watch
blog, not a 'My opinion on J. Random group of people'. yhf074 got it.
Spurlock presents this particular group of hippie farmers as if they
were great, even though that claim is highly questionable.

Again, what difference does it make that Vermont hippies are
self-righteous? If they make no propaganda or lots of it, that
doesn't change their value, lack thereof, or Spurlocks presentation of
them.

Really this is all a minor annoyance. The article would have been
great without the 'parasite' paragraph, which makes an off-topic slam
on a generalization of a group of people (which is just applicable to
many other groups) instead of pointing the factual details of this
misrepresentation of this farm.

[Evan Williams]

I disagree, AJ. It's not off-topic at all. Spurlock's show romanticizes these commune farms---basically, spreading propaganda and misinformation. Their attitudes play a factor in how they are perceived just as much as the reality of their inefficiency does. Thus, it is certainly pertinent to address those attitudes in such a discussion.

[Ryan]

Apophenious, you sound almost like the late Leonard Read's essay "I, Pencil."

Worth reading if you haven't already: http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=3469

[Martin]

Concerning the above comments about Mad Cow Disease not being an American problem, I urge you to look here;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4621139.stm

The prion protein that causes BSE (Mad Cow Disease) in cows cannot be destroyed at ultra-high temperatures. It survives furnace-like conditions. Here in the UK we have been told many times by the authorities not to panic about it. Then another piece of evidence comes along that is worrying;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3610096.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3776025.stm

And for the comment above about nvCJD - the Mad Cow variant in humans - being a very small, isolated problem. Well, I hope you are right. Some scientists are urging caution as they say the recent deaths may be a small first wave, and that, because the disease is thought to have a long incubation time in humans, there could be a much bigger second wave in the years to come. This is not scaremongering. Look here;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3539156.stm

You should be most worried about emerging viruses from the bush meat trade in the African Congo region. That might threaten all of us.

[actus]

"The hippie farmer benefits from the big city doctor using big city surgical equipment and big city training to operate on his child if injured."

So does the non-hippy computer scientist.

[The Unbeliver]

The non-hippy computer scientist, however, pays for the surgery out of his own pocket (or pays indirectly via insurance premiums). The hippy gets a free ride since the hospital is required to treat him regardless of ability to pay. Therefore in this case, assuming no outside employment or health arrangements, the commune members are parasitic.

Anyone want to guess at the health insurance package at Dancing Rabbit?

[actus]

"The non-hippy computer scientist, however, pays for the surgery out of his own pocket (or pays indirectly via insurance premiums). The hippy gets a free ride since the hospital is required to treat him regardless of ability to pay."

Where is this hospital, because I'd like to go to it. And how about the non-hippy low-wage, uninsured, help-desk worker? Parasite?

[Doug]

Morgan sez he produced a movie about the commercialization of Christmas.... and it's going to be released in November? Hmmmmm.... perhaps he should release it in January? I giggle at the irony.

[Fare]

This argument is fundamentally flawed. Perhaps, MS is mistaken that "rendering" is a harmful practice. Yet, even if he is, it doesn't make his fondness of recycling inconsistent. At the very least, you must show that MS is not merely mistaken about "rendering" but that he realizes it is harmful, and yet persists, inconsistently (hypocritically?) in his fondness for recycling. For it seems altogether likely that MS' fondness for recycling is due to its benefits to people and the planet. It is this benefit, not recycling per se, that MS' is fond of. So even if "rendering" is a form of recycling he can consistently reject it, because it does not benefit people or the planet (or so he might believe).

[Fare]

"Communes and Luddite farms are fine, so long as we approach them with the understanding that they are, at heart, parasitic. They may shun technology, markets, and commerce but technology, markets, and commerce make it possible for them to exist. They aren't applicable in the macro. That is, if we all lived this way, we'd all starve."

How is that we live today. At some point, in the past, humans existed without technology, markets, or commerce. Somehow they did not ALL starve.

Parasite = take more than contribute. You are the burden of proving that all or most communards and so on take more than they contribute. For example, many communards use alternative health remedies.

[Hamish]

um but there werent around 6 BILLION people back then, heack not even 1 billion, those farms maaaay work for a small comunity but if you try to do it with a large amount of people, i.e. our entire population then we will be going back to the Dark Ages.

[Nicole Reaves]

So, if you have a country that is at war, quickly filling up with dead bodies, the smartest thing to do is "render" them and mix their dried up protiens with cow and pig feed? I think that like a lot of people, Morgan is saying that it's plain nasty. These are living beings, not products, the whole system is disgusting and as a society, we shouldn't do this, it's not right.

[Yes they do]

YES THEY DO. I had a friend who worked at a tallow factory. He went around in a truck and collected road kill, dead cattle, your pet cat furball, and turned them into FEED AND TALLOW. But their arn't ANY additives in a Mc Donalds hamburger... Just good wholesome stuff. A wonderful capitalist franchise.