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from the cant-make-profit-so-no-one-gets-benefit dept.
Papas Fritas writes:
The Christian Science Monitor reports that Costco will dump almost one million jars of peanut butter into a New Mexico landfill and bulldoze over them after retailer Costco refused to take shipment of the peanut butter and declined requests to let it be donated to food banks or repackaged or sold to brokers who provide food to institutions like prisons. The peanut butter comes from a bankrupt peanut-processing plant that was at the heart of a salmonella outbreak in 2012 and although "all parties agreed there's nothing wrong with the peanut butter from a health and safety issue," court records show that on a 19 March conference call Costco said "it would not agree to any disposition ... other than destruction."
Despite the peanut butter being safe, Curry County landfill employee Tim Stacy says that no one will be able to consume the peanut butter once it's dumped because it was immediately rolled over with a bulldozer, destroying the supply. Stacy added more trash will then be dumped on top of the pile. Sonya Warwick, spokeswoman for New Mexico's largest food bank, declined to comment directly on the situation, but she noted that rescued food accounted for 74% of what Roadrunner Food Bank distributed across New Mexico last year. "Access to rescued food allows us to provide a more well-rounded and balanced meal to New Mexicans experiencing hunger." No word yet on where anyone was going to find a million jars of jelly.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Covalent on Monday March 31 2014, @05:11PM
They should have donated the peanut butter to a green energy group. Have them sign the appropriate paperwork to ensure the stuff doesn't get eaten (they did the right thing there - no sense getting anyone sick when peanut butter is so abundant and cheap). Pour the peanut oil off the top - 1 million jars of peanut butter probably makes enough biodiesel to run a school bus for a month. Compost the remaining PB - 1 million jars of peanut butter probably makes enough compost to fertilize the gardens of dozens of hippies. Recycle the jars - 1 million jars of peanut butter probably contains enough plastic to save 2 barrels of oil.
The newsworthy nature of "CostCo turns lemons into a cleaner environment" would have been totally worth the trouble.
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday March 31 2014, @05:52PM
if you can't open a peanut bag in a plane without some going into shock, what's the result of spreading it around, burying it, or composting it, or biodieseling it?
I don't know how the "bad stuff" disseminates in each of these cases.
I can already see a B-series movie about a toxic peanut butter cloud (or monster) coming out of that dump.
(Score: 3, Funny) by emg on Monday March 31 2014, @06:57PM
"I can already see a B-series movie about a toxic peanut butter cloud (or monster) coming out of that dump."
It's on the SyFy channel this weekend, isn't it?
(Score: 5, Informative) by snick on Monday March 31 2014, @06:14PM
You seem to have the benefit side covered, now how much would it cost to open 1 million jars, pour off 1 million oil slicks, scrape out 1 million peanut-turds, store, transport and recycle all these components?
And who is paying?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Covalent on Monday March 31 2014, @06:57PM
The same people who are paying to haul all that away and drive the bulldozers and pay for the landfill space and the fill dirt to go over top of it and the insurance for the guys who do it and and and...
CostCo, of course. :)
The biodiesel alone might be valuable enough to cover the costs, fwiw.
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by snick on Monday March 31 2014, @09:53PM
I seriously doubt that 1/8 cup of peanut oil will cover than handling of a jar.
The hauling costs ($60,000 for driving the whole mess to the dump) would be significantly higher if you separated into 3 different components and hauled each its own direction. It would probably cost $60,000 just to get the full jars to the separation facility and then $XX,000 to haul the components to their destinations.
They didn't mention the dumping fee (which must have been significant) But you aren't mentioning the cost of figuring out how to compost the brick-like slugs of peanut-paste that you get when you don't stir the oil back into the peanut butter, or the costs of recycling the plastic.
I don't know what the numbers are, but I don't have your optimism that this would all pay for itself.
(Score: 1) by qwerty on Monday March 31 2014, @10:50PM
Someone like (the late) Clarence Birdseye would take a look at this problem and turn it into a business opportunity. He was intrigued with finding practical money-making methods for turning waste and offcuts into useful products.
Maybe he could use this snippet from the "Peanut Butter" page on Wikipedia: "The oils found in peanut butter are known to allow chewing gum to be removed from hair."