 Hi, I'm Mary Keena, Livestock Environmental Management Specialist with NDSU Extension based at the Carrington Research Extension Center. I work with crop and livestock producers on manure and mortality management issues. In this presentation, we're going to talk about the differences and similarities between butcher waste and livestock mortality disposal. The company that was providing rendering services for our North Dakota butcher plants stopped their services in May of 2020. While rendering is still available, it is from out of state and it is quite pricey. Proper disposal butcher waste is required for our butcher plants to continue to legally operate. And in recent months, I've had a lot of calls from livestock producers in general wondering about the disposal requirements for on-farm butchering. Of course, there are contrasting disposal options between if you're a butcher shop or if you have a livestock mortality on your farm. So just to run through a few of the approved disposal methods, as you can see on this slide here for both butcher waste and livestock mortality, rendering incineration and composting are all options for both butcher waste or livestock mortality. Permitted sites are also an option that our butcher waste facilities can use to a landfill. Our livestock mortality can use them as well, however, it's not technically written in the law like that, but it is an approved method. On the livestock mortality side, burial is an option where it is not an option on the butcher waste side of things. Butcher waste also has the option of liquids-only disposals, which includes a Class 5 injection well or a drainage field, and publicly-owned treatment works. On the livestock mortality side of things, burning in special situations is approved. Waste-infected carcasses must be burned as well as some swine diseases. However, in both options, we want folks to avoid open-burning small landfills that might not be able to handle that waste, even if they say yes, and carcass abandonment, which in North Dakota we would call feeding the coyotes. And so both butcher waste and livestock mortality should avoid these disposal options. So egg waste includes solid waste derived from the production and processing of crops and livestock such as manure, spoiled grains, livestock carcasses, fertilizer. Farming operation does not include any processing of crops, livestock, or other egg products. So farmers or ranchers, because of this, may be able to dispose of their own waste on their own property, which is where the difference comes in between a livestock mortality, so an animal that dies during livestock production, versus butcher waste, which is an animal that is being further processed. So we're going to run through just a few of the options of disposal right now. So rendering, like I said, is one of them, though it is quite pricey. Just to give you an idea of what it is, is the carcasses exposed to very high temperatures and pressurized steam, which denatures or destructures the pathogens. So combustion is also something of a high temperature. So it's basically burning, but it's burning with special filters at a specific temperature. And the carcass is reduced to ash. However, this takes a great deal of energy. And also you have to have specific permits from the Air Quality Department to run an incinerator. A permitted site is essentially a landfill. A municipal solid waste landfill is one of these facilities that can accept butcher waste and mortality, livestock mortalities. There's 13 of them permitted in North Dakota. Individual landfills can accept or reject their own on their own terms. However, if you are going to a municipal solid waste facility, they cannot accept free liquids. And so if you're taking butcher waste there, the blood cannot go there. Burying, like I said, is an option for livestock mortality, but not for butcher waste. And so livestock mortalities can be buried. However, in this case, it is very important to keep in mind site selection. We want to make sure where we're burying, where the water table is at, where the permanent water table is, and how close we are to potential contamination of a water source. Composting is an option that can be done for both butcher waste or livestock mortality. It is more affordable than rendering an incineration. It's also something that can be done in the wintertime. And so especially considering North Dakota, with digging a hole for burial in the winter versus composting, which is done above ground, that might be a better option. Again, no matter what composting versus burial, site selection is super important still because we want to make sure we're not contaminating either ground or surface water. So here you can see on the left, we have a livestock mortality. And on the right, we have butcher waste, what we would call awful. And so both of these processes, it's the same composting. One versus the other is the same. So we need an absorptive base, we need bulking material, and we need cover material. So we need the same type of materials for both processes. This is also something that can be done in the winter. This was a mortality that was buried in late November. And in late January, we checked the temperature. So outside the air temp was minus one degree Fahrenheit. Inside that compost pile, it was 120 degrees Fahrenheit. And so I often get asked, does this process actually work in the winter? It does. OK, so if you have questions about mortality, disposal, or butcher waste disposal, you're more than welcome to call with the number on the screen. You can send me an email. You can call one of your extension agents and they'll get our information for you. There's also some other resources on here, like the Department of Environmental Quality, the Department of Egg, both of which are dealing with either the butcher waste side of things or the mortality side of things. Also, we have a publication, the Animal Carcass Disposal Options publication that's available to you to explain further what these options are. And then the Cornell Waste Management Institute is an excellent resource for finding just some extra videos and more information, especially on the butcher waste side of things. Thank you.