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Wisconsin Begins Using Cheese To De-Ice Roads
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "The NYT reports that Milwaukee has begun a pilot program to use cheese brine to keep city roads from freezing, mixing the dairy waste with traditional rock salt as a way to trim costs and ease pollution. 'You want to use provolone or mozzarella,' says Jeffrey A. Tews, the fleet operations manager for the public works department, which has spread the cheesy substance in Bay View, a neighborhood on Milwaukee's south side. 'Those have the best salt content. You have to do practically nothing to it.' Local governments across the country have been experimenting with cheaper and environmentally friendly ways of thawing icy thoroughfares, trying everything from sugar beet juice to discarded brewery grain in an attempt to limit the use of road salt, which can spread too thin, wash away and pollute waterways. 'If you put dry salt on a roadway, you typically lose 30 percent to bounce and traffic,' says Emil Norby, who works for Polk County and was the first in Wisconsin to come up with the cheese brine idea to help the salt stick. In a state where lawmakers once honored the bacterium in Monterey Jack as the state's official microbe, residents of Bay View say they have noticed little difference, good or bad, in the smell of their streets, and city officials say they have received no complaints. The mayor of Bay View says it's an experiment, but one that makes sense. The brine will come from the Dresser Farm in Polk County, where it is already being used on the roads. The only cost will be for transportation and distribution. 'We thought, 'Well, let's give it a shot.' The investment in this project is $1,474.'"
I have a feeling the roadkill rate might go up a bit, and I'd hate to think about trying to walk my dogs on a sidewalk or street coated with processed dairy...
Log in or piss off.
not the federal the county government. and yes I bet that is legit for the initial test.
They were probably given the brine for free so the company wouldn't have to dispose of it legally. which would also cost a couple of thousand of dollars.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
After all, they say "do what you know"...
Won't this make the road even more slippery?
The content says brine, the salty water left over from cheesemaking.
timothy, if that's the same to you, have some with crackers.
I normally don't do this, but, "Woosh!"
As a professional cheesemaker, (yes, one of the blessed variety), the first question that comes to my mind is:
Why are these people throwing out their brine? This seems an unnecessarily costly exercise.
It is typical practice in many cheese factories (and all of those in which I've worked) to keep and re-use brine (sometimes for decades), with routine and simple maintenance such as topping up salt levels, adjustment of pH, filtration to remove solids and occasional pasteurisation if required.
A "raw" brine of just NaCl and water will, of course, do the job of salting your cheese, but most of the salt is left in solution at the end of the brining process (so it doesn't make sense to throw it away), and the pH will have a tendency to bounce around, adversely affecting the properties of your cheese. The various whey products in a re-used brine help to stabilise the pH, so one usually only needs to top up salt to replace that absorbed by the cheese.
I could imagine this smelling pretty horrible, particularly come summer.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
It's actually a waste product that is mostly salt water.. but thanks for the usual Slashdot quality journalism.
Better tyres yes, spiked tyres depends.
They make sense in areas/countries with low population density and snow covered roads.
On mostly ice/snow free streets they wear down any pavement quite fast, resulting in street repair costs magnitudes higher than the initial savings during winter.
That and they are really shitty compared to normal tyres when you brake.
There are fewer illiterates than people who can't read.
It's the OP's fault for putting content in the subject and not in the body.
They are using cheese brine, not the cheese itself. The brine has salt in it but is mostly not cheese.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Yeah, but if you mod him down it'll all appear together on one line.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
They are going to have a problem with mice on the roads. What will the spray to deal with the mice? Fish. The fish will attract cats who will eat the mice. But then there will be a cat problem, so they will have to spray ... anyway, I am sure that the old woman who swallowed a fly is consulting. So all is well.
Except I can't use my mod points now I've posted :)
I bet there's plenty of leftover dry-noodle-dust somewhere that could be thrown into the mix.
Although I suppose it curd work.
Bay View is not a city! It's a neighborhood of Milwaukee! Summary starts by saying this but then just descends into ignorance by talking about the mayor of Bay View. There is no mayor of a neighborhood!
Also I am a native Milwaukee resident and I support this. Cheese that shit up, bitch. As long as it doesn't damage anything or stink or leave a nasty residue.
Thats a heat wave
When I were a lad in Yorkshire, it used to get down to -25 Kelvin, and our mother would give us a cup of liquid Helium to warm us up...
Don't worry, I'll mod it for you.
I, for one, am looking forward to the inevitable
Pavement (material), the durable surfacing of roads and walkways;
CHEESE FOR EVERYONE!!!!
I've encountered the use of what I was told was a whey solution being sprayed on roads to keep down the dust in summer. As I recall that did smell a bit.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
You can't mod and comment...
MABASPLOOM!
I suppose cheese brine uses consumergrade salt while a mixture of rock salt and brine has been known as de-icing method for quite a while now.
Spiked tires and tire chains are actually illegal to use in Wisconsin, except for emergency vehicles and rural mail carriers.
The best you can use there is regular soft-rubber snow tires
And then that 4 inches of slush gets compressed and frozen into a 1 inch thick slab of ice (covered in a layer of powdered ice)
cheese shortages at local cheese shops leads to widespread cat famine.
"Before humanity, the stars shone throughout the heavens. After humanity [has gone], the stars will continue to shine"
I live in Wisconsin, and we tend to do a lot of "Second Run" Re purposing, I makes sense, Its already there, so why not?
I know the freeway salters already use a thick slurry salt mix that not only speeds the melting process, but also stays put alot better on bridges and such. I don't know what is exactly in the mix, but i seem to recall the mix is just as safe as pure salt.
Other than cost savings though, I wouldn't call it a eco benefit. It's still going to wash away into the ground and local water, I remember a article in the Milwaukee journal a few years back that some of the smaller ponds and lakes in the Madison area were starting to show a dangerous salinity level for the local wildlife. (they tend to over salt the roads a bit according to the article)
I live in the Northwoods, and what the county does here is salt right after the snow ends, and after that it's sand. a bit more economical, they just send a street sweeper out early spring and collect what hasnt washed away and reuse it
Calcium Magnesium Acetate (CMA) works great. We've been using CMA for three years on our farm. It is non-toxic, doesn't damage concrete, doesn't corrode steel, won't hurt plants, aquatic life or pigs (what we raise on pasture) so it is pretty ideal.
The down side is that CMA is more expensive than road salt. I feel the extra cost is worth it to protect the environment, our livestock, our buildings and our vehicles.
See these articles
http://www.google.com/search?q=site:sugarmtnfarm.com+cma
use what you have...
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
"That and they are really shitty compared to normal tyres when you brake."
no they are not. I ride on studded snow tires and I can stop far FAR shorter than any other tire on snow, and they already proved that winter tires in general have a higher grip on a 2WD sedan than all seasons do on a 4X4. Jalopnic did several runs on a track and proved it without a doubt.
The studs are easily removed for when the ice is all gone. The simple tool I have will insert or remove the studs. And bans on them are not for the roads, it's that most drivers are far far too stupid to keep the car under 45mph with the studs in. over that speed the risk of throwing the studs increases rapidly.
Granted I actually USE the tires so I know a lot more about them and drive with them during the winter so I know how they add traction and their limitations.
Studded snow tires on a honda civic can out drive any 4X4 truck on all seasons in the snow, it's such a difference you can see the "truck nuts" shrivle up.
Note: my wifes Jeep has standard snow tires on it and she outdrives hard even the county snow plows, no sliding at intersections, etc....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Milwalkee gets nothing compared to what we get across the lake. I have 4 feet in my yard right now, drive 10 miles east and it drops drastically. Unless the prevailing winds do a 180, Milwalkee get's nothing in snow compared to where I am living. Got an additional foot last night, not a big deal, you wipe it off the car and drive away.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You can use the walnut shell "spiked" tires there without a problem.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"Just remember: use pro-vo-lone-ay on the stone-ay."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Other than cost savings though, I wouldn't call it a eco benefit. It's still going to wash away into the ground and local water...
There ought to be an eco benefit, given that you can achieve the same result with 30% less.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
The roads are in such a bad condition, it's almost as if there are snow threads in the asphalt itself...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Dumping the cheese cultures all over town, with the mold-inducing bacteria, what could possibly go wrong?!
Henk-Jan maak de kooien klaar, we hebben nieuwe klanten! ;)
-- 29A the number of the Beast