Redondo Beach, Calif.-What do you do with a million dead sardines washed up on the Redondo Beach harbor in a quirky situation believed caused by oxygen deprivation? You turn them into fertilizer. That was the situation earlier this month, when experts believe recent storms caused the large school of sardines to swim around the breakwater and into the enclosed harbor, where they were trapped and unable to get out before depleting the water of oxygen. City officials assembled a response team and had more than 50 volunteers gather the fish with nets to be recycled into fertilizer at American Organics in Victorville, where General Manager Dean Johnson said between 15 and 25 tons have been received each of the last few days, for a total of about 165 tons. Johnson said American Organics easily absorbed the extra load since it’s usually receiving 200 tons or more a day of recycled material. “Our normal feedstocks are green waste, and we also bring in large quantities of landfill diversion, including any organic waste that we get from the cities for composting into soil amendments. So as far as the fish are concerned, it’s a fairly insignificant amount and not really out of the ordinary,” Johnson explained. “The first thing we do is to put them into the process and blend them with other organic material.” Johnson anticipates that the dead fish, which are high in moisture, will produce a very rich product that will be used by farmers throughout southern California.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain