Plot

Mike heads to Southern California to find out what it takes to keep a tar pit clean. Then Mike travels north where he learns about rendering and discovers how much of a farm animal can be recycled.

The first half of this episode is Mike visiting the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, CA. He gets an overview of the Tar Pits (which are asphalt "seeps" with Ice Age fossils) from Kristen at Pit 91, which is the only currently active "pit" where excavation work is being performed. First he works on replacing shoring boards with Kristen and Ryan. Then he learns how to "glop" (remove liquid asphalt that is clogging drainage trenches) with Andrea and Michelle. Then he follows the trenches to help Laura "glop" the sump pump. After working in the pit, he cleans up so that he can go inside to see the work in the lab. He meets Shelley, the Laboratory Supervisor at the Page Museum, who shows him what the preparators do in the "fishbowl," where the public can view them sorting and cleaning the fossils. Her assistant, Trevor, guides him in cutting open a plaster jacket containing part of the spine of a mammoth.

The second half of the episode finds Mike at a rendering operation where he learns all about the rendering of cows. Talk about recycling!