Who handles the DuPage Fair's garbage?

Cow pies, horse apples and lamb pellets; by any other name they would smell just as rancid.

At DuPage County's five-day fair, which continues today in Wheaton, with its bounty of livestock, there's bound to be tons of the stuff.

Among Bob Radkiewicz's many duties as the fair's agriculture director, it's his job to ensure what he calls "marbles" and "plop" are routinely and properly disposed of.

All of the animals' keepers are responsible for the maintenance of the stalls where they are kept. And since most creatures are there to be judged, it behooves all to keep a tidy stable.

"We are on a real clean table out here," Radkiewicz said. "We are cleaning up constantly."

Tammy Wakeley's show cows will go through 20 bales of hay that are used simply as bedding for the animals during their stay at the fairgrounds in Wheaton.

Every time one of the cattle relieves itself in the stall, someone is quickly there with a pitchfork to remove the offending mass of hay. A fresh batch is put in its place.

"It's a non-stop thing," the Rockford rancher said. "And that's not all we do. We go through a lot of paper towels wiping butts because if they get it on their tails, that's a whole other mess."

Cows are ploppers, sheep are not.

"Marbles, pellets, raisins, whatever you want to call it," explained Manda Geerts of Prophetstown. "We put fresh straw down during the day and then clean the whole pen out in the morning. We can't clean up after every time they go, that'd be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Or a pellet in a haystack."

You can smell the animals even before you make it onto the fairgrounds. But as Radkiewicz is quick to point out, that's the scent of the animal, not their waste.

Every morning the blacktop around the animal stables is cleaned by a street sweeper and twice a day the 20 small Dumpsters filled with the waste are emptied by a contracted hauler.

"We're real heavy on sanitizers and hand-washing stations," Radkiewicz said.

Of the cows, horses, pigs, sheep, fowl and other animals at the fair, Radkiewicz still says humans are the messiest.

There are 30 of the same size Dumpsters for garbage created by human fair visitors. They are emptied on the same cycle, but into different garbage trucks, fair officials said.

A crew of about 11 roving workers is responsible for emptying the roughly 100 garbage cans into the smaller Dumpsters and picking up loose garbage as well.

"We are very proud that we have a very clean fairgrounds," said Kitty Cooney, fair secretary. "And we do not have sloppy visitors."

Attention to cleanliness for humans and animals is paramount at the fair, organizers said.

For 16-year-old Abraham Guzman of West Chicago, cleaning up after an animal who may not have been able to "hold it" between transport from the show ring to its stable is not exactly a dream job, but it's not as horrible as it appears.

"It's OK as long I don't have to touch it," he said as he shoveled the walkway between the cattle stable and the ring. "It's all poo. I don't look forward to one animal over the other, I don't think anyone has a favorite poo."