The stench rising off the dead bodies was overpowering. It was so thick you could taste it. Sandy pulled a dust-mask respirator over his face, but the smell still penetrated. To speed up the decomposition process, he quickly shoveled manure over the decaying flesh. The manure cut the odor somewhat—that is, if you don't mind the stink of cow dung. As he flung each shovelful of waste over the bodies, a black cloud of fat flesh flies would rise into the air. It was a disgusting job that wasted hours of his day, but there weren’t many alternatives.

Sandy is a large-scale chicken farmer in the mountains of north Georgia, who prides himself on his clean, well-ventilated chicken houses. He even uses top quality feed, yet despite his best efforts, 1 to 5 percent of his chickens die every day. Raising hundreds of thousands of birds at a time leaves him with a big pile of dead ones to deal with every day. He tried burying them, but that took up too much land. He tried incinerating them, but that cost as much as $10,000 a month in propane, which destroyed his profit margin. That left composting, but working with rotting carcasses was so gross and annoying that he was determined to find a better way.

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