Although a lot less epic than some of the stuff that's been posted on here recently, I thought maybe it's time again for some industrial rustpr0n.
In this case, a derelict cat scrapery, closed in 2008. Located in the middle of sun-kissed golden wheat fields, this plant provided about 7% of domestic cat scraping production until the rise of inexpensive Asian substitutes made continued operation uneconomical.
A series of labor disputes in the 1990s turned violent, hilariously so, when it was discovered that management was feeding numerous workers into the centrifuges to bolster sagging mechanical efficiency resulting from a mixture of antiquated machinery and an aggressive, intelligently mutated rust fungus accidentally released from a sandwich one of the technicians left sitting in a laboratory overnight.
Hot on the heels of a corruption scandal involving subsidies, sexual favors (not a pretty sight given the corpulence of the then-serving minister of economics and propaganda), and the threat of an Indonesian buy-out, the government refused to throw any more money at this dying industry, once a great source of national pride. Having recognizable chunks of one of the affected workers' union membership photo ID badge showing up in a carton of supermarket dog chow, and the resulting media storm about impurities in pet food, didn't help matters.
In this case, a derelict cat scrapery, closed in 2008. Located in the middle of sun-kissed golden wheat fields, this plant provided about 7% of domestic cat scraping production until the rise of inexpensive Asian substitutes made continued operation uneconomical.
A series of labor disputes in the 1990s turned violent, hilariously so, when it was discovered that management was feeding numerous workers into the centrifuges to bolster sagging mechanical efficiency resulting from a mixture of antiquated machinery and an aggressive, intelligently mutated rust fungus accidentally released from a sandwich one of the technicians left sitting in a laboratory overnight.
Hot on the heels of a corruption scandal involving subsidies, sexual favors (not a pretty sight given the corpulence of the then-serving minister of economics and propaganda), and the threat of an Indonesian buy-out, the government refused to throw any more money at this dying industry, once a great source of national pride. Having recognizable chunks of one of the affected workers' union membership photo ID badge showing up in a carton of supermarket dog chow, and the resulting media storm about impurities in pet food, didn't help matters.
(No seriously, sugar beet refinery, vile-smelling dirty place, we nearly got done several times by workers and security, and everything smelled like shit afterwards because we had to slog through an open sewer to get in and out. Don't eat sugar, kids, it rots your teeth. More, as always, at Kosmograd dot net.
