One Extra Large Pizza Peril, to Go, and Make it Snappy

When Jeno's Inc. built a frozen-pizza plant in economically depressed Wellston, Ohio (pop. 6,100), last March, city officials were delighted. But they found it hard to stomach the consequences. An estimated 300,000 gal. of pizza waste, made up of excess flour, cheese, pepperoni, tomato paste and meat particles, backed up in Wellston's sewage-treatment plant. The sludge filled one of two 250,000-gal. holding tanks and began to flow into the other. The waste, high in acid content, could not be buried in its gooey form, and the city lacked the equipment to deal with the problem. Says City Safety Director Richard Devlin: "We knew we were running out of time."

Last week Wellston stemmed the pizza tide. Using a $516,000 state grant, the city rented extra processing equipment until an additional waste plant can be built. Jeno's is much relieved. Said a spokesman: "I hope nobody gets the idea tomato paste is coming up through the toilets." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.