Company shut after community complaints about ‘foul’ and ‘nauseating’ odour

An Aussie business faced community backlash over an “unbearable” issue which resulted in a $100,000 weekly problem.

A 68-year-old company has been forced to close after complaints from neighbours about “foul” and “nauseating” odours from its premises.

The family business, called AJ Bush and Sons, had collected red meat waste from butchers across Sydney, which was processed to be used in products like pet food, fertiliser and renewable fuels.

Red meat waste can be difficult to deal with as it can’t be sold or disposed of in landfill due to the risk of hazardous bacteria.

Community complaints were made to the NSW Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), while a Change.org petition was also launched urging the company to “contain the offensive odours or relocate”.

“Unfortunately, many residents regularly endure a noxious odour allegedly emanating from AJ Bush & Sons Meat Rendering facility,” the petition said.

“This odour has been described as “foul, nauseating, offensive, pungent, and unbearable,” often likened to “cooking dog food,” and associated with “rotten meat, effluent, sewer, and manure”.

“Our community has endured the distressing odour from AJ Bush & Sons, coupled with the alleged breaches documented on the EPA website. Therefore, we earnestly request that they urgently upgrade the facility to contain odours within their boundaries or consider relocating to a more suitable location,” the petition launched last year read.

The Department of Planning, Industry, and Environment has released land in the surrounding suburbs closer to the facility with houses being built increasingly closer to the factory The plan for North West Priority Growth Area includes the suburbs of Box Hill, Marsden Park, Schofields and Riverstone and will provide housing for more than 90,000 people over the next decade and boost the region economically.

The factory used to be surrounded by farmland but in recent years, the Department of Planning, Industry, and Environment has released land in the surrounding suburbs closer to the facility with houses being built increasingly closer to the factory.

A surprise inspection of AJ Bush and Sons’ Riverstone factory was conducted by the EPA in September last year after a number of community complaints.

It followed a routine odour survey by EPA officers of the north western Sydney suburbs of Riverstone, Rouse Hill, and Grantham Farm, where odours suspected to have originated from activities at AJ Bush and Sons’ Riverstone factory premises were detected, the EPA said.

“EPA officers identified several areas where spills or leaks from equipment had occurred which required immediate attention,” the EPA added in a statement.

The inspection uncovered alleged breaches of the company’s Environment Protection Licence and the company copped a $15,000 fine.

AJ Bush & Sons was established in 1956 and business had been booming with around 1000 collections of red meat waste made free of charge from butchers in Sydney.

It diverted over 250,000 tonnes of primary material such as fat, bone, animal offal, poultry offal and bone, feathers and blood every year with its collections.

AJ Bush and Sons facility in Sydney has been shut down but its QLD site (pictured) remains open. Picture: Adam Head

But after the EPA inspection, the company suspended its collection services for a period announcing it faced “unprecedented challenges” before starting up again in December last year.

“Since the temporary pause in production last November, Bush’s Proteins have implemented

several significant updates and improvements at the Riverstone Plant,” they told the community in January.

“These include a comprehensive deep clean of the whole production line, the upgrade of the biofilters, and a number of major improvements to the wastewater management system.”

However, the business became impossible to operate and in April AJ Bush and Sons announced it had made the “difficult decision” to wind down its operations.

File photo from 2013 of AJ Bush and Sons General Manager, Dean Aaron, with former Greenway federal Labor MP Michelle Rowland and former Federal Innovation Minister Kim Carr at the announcement about the clean energy project at the meat processor's site in Riverstone. Picture: Supplied

At the time head of rendering at the plant’s operating company Bush’s Proteins, Cameron Bush, said a build-up of residential development and the planned Stage 3 release of land in the area for more housing made it impossible to remain.

“It’s a difficult decision as our plant has been a part of the Riverstone community since the

1950s, but Riverstone is no longer a semirural fringe suburb,” he said.

Mr Bush told the ABC the company had invested a lot of money into odour control and had also investigated changing its practices.

“We committed … to find[ing] alternative methods [of] collection and handling. We went through that process and unfortunately, we could not make any value stack up,” Mr Bush said.

“We were losing about $100,000 a week.”

AJ Bush and Sons rendering facility in Queensland back in 2011. Picture: Adam Head

The business initially began as a retail and wholesale butcher in 1909 before expanding into the manufacturing industry in 1956.

On its website AJ Bush and Son’s said their factories were part of Australia’s largest service rendering business, processing both red meat and poultry by-products in NSW and Queensland.

The Rouse Hill facility had previously installed covered anaerobic ponds to capture bio-gas, a first in Australia, and converted all coal-fired boilers to natural and biogas co-firing resulting in a cleaner alternative saving over 20,000 tonnes per annum of CO2 equivalent.

But now its manufacturing plant has been shuttered.

It ceased collection, aggregation, processing and rendering of meat offcuts and other by-products from small meat processors at its Riverstone site at the end of May, while its processing equipment was decommissioned and moved.

Originally published as Company shut after community complaints about ‘foul’ and ‘nauseating’ odour