Wisconsin Begins Using Cheese To De-Ice Roads 139
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.'"
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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
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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.
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use what you have...
Re:"$1,474?" said the Federal Government, (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Re:"$1,474?" said the Federal Government, (Score:4, Funny)
Don't worry, I'll mod it for you.
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You can't mod and comment...
Side-effects (Score:2)
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...
Re:Side-effects (Score:5, Funny)
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Yes, just like 70% of adult humans and all the other adult mammals on planet earth.
Re: Side-effects (Score:1)
[Citation needed]
70% would mean that 7 out of every 10 people I know would be lactose intolerant. However, that ratio for me is more like 1 in every 100.
So either I'm an extreme statistical outlier or you're spouting bullshit. Guess which one I'm betting it is?
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90% of the people you know are probably White. If you based world population trends on the area where you live you probably think most people in the world are White, followed by Blacks. Reality is most of the world population is Asian.
This is why so many U.S. science and medical studies fall under the W.E.I.R.D problem
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/05/weird_psychology_social_science_researchers_rely_too_much_on_western_college.html [slate.com]
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[Citation needed]
"Most mammals normally cease to produce lactase, becoming lactose intolerant, after weaning,[4] but some human populations have developed lactase persistence, in which lactase production continues into adulthood. It is estimated that 75% of adults worldwide show some decrease in lactase activity during adulthood.[5] The frequency of decreased lactase activity ranges from 5% in northern Europe through 71% for Sicily to more than 90% in some African and Asian countries.[6]"
70% would mean that 7 out of every 10 people I know would be lactose intolerant. However, that ratio for me is more like 1 in every 100.
So either I'm an extreme statistical outlier or you're spouting bullshit. Guess which one I'm betting it is?
Do not try to generalize from person
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Here I am with mod points, but there doesn't seem to be a -1 Dumbass option in the dropdown.
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wrong, http://milk.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000661 [procon.org]
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They're probably as lactose intolerant as the rest of the canine population. But the real problem is that they're more than a little bit food driven, and one's a hound.
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Cheese doesn't contain lactose
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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.
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Pavement (material), the durable surfacing of roads and walkways;
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"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
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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.
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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)
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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
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You can use the walnut shell "spiked" tires there without a problem.
Makes sense (Score:1)
Slippery (Score:2)
Headline sucks (Score:5, Informative)
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In otherwords, they're using what we've been spraying on roads in Canada for the last 5 years...and what we make in the depot yards from the "powdery leftover salt." Of course we add in a chemical deicer as well, since it quite often gets below -10C here in the winter, and straight salt stops working properly at -9C. And then there's other places here in Canada where we use gravel or sand, and only that because even chemical deicers don't work when it gets that cold.
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-10C is nothing, it often gets -10F there.
That's nice, it gets -20F here. And I've seen it as low as -35F in southern ontario(which is farther south), as a useful point the effectiveness of salt diminishes the closer you get to -10C, at -10C it stops being effective totally and you need to mix in other things to keep it working. Or switch to a chemical deicer but those are usually only good to -20C or so, some of the more expensive ones will work to -30C or so.
And being that I just came back from a part of the country where it hit -39F ... in mid
cheese vs cheese brine (Score:5, Funny)
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Brine is delicious, you insensitive clod.
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Brine is delicious, you insensitive clod.
You shrimp.
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You seem to think he's in a pickle of some sort.
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I am shocked to discover that an jackkassed inflammatory title was applied to an article!
Actually no, I'm not.
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Ahhh... the power of CHEESE!!!!
Why? A cheesemaker's POV... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Well, obviously it's not meant to be taken literally; it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products
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It wouldn't work so well around here, since NaCl brine freezes at 0F
Low temps for the next three nights are forcast at -20F
And we already had one -24F night this winter
(I live west of Wisconsin)
Cold (Score:5, Funny)
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...
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He's not bragging. Lots of places are too cold for salt brine, likely including most of WI. Hence the sanding trucks and ice grooving machines.
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Salt water is better than dry salt, it's free to the local government, and the brine would have to be disposed of somewhere anyway.
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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.
Realistically, seeing as the engineering problem is the loss from dropping salt in it's solid form wouldn't any kind of brine or saline solution do as long as it didn't freeze. It doesn't necessarily have to be from cheese. Not that this matters to me where I live, it was 32 Degrees Celsius here in Perth, Australia today. Just curious, would brine reuse be done at factories that mass produce the yellow plastic masquerading as cheese at the supermarket? I'm not a cheesemaker but have a bit of experience wit
Smell? (Score:4)
I could imagine this smelling pretty horrible, particularly come summer.
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Parent is suggesting that the current lack of smell might be due to the low temperatures freezing the more odorous molecules. (Or retarding odorous bacteria that feed on the solution.) And thus once the temperatures rise, all that cheesy-brine on or near the roads will start to whiff up.
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All of which are pale shadows of Decatur Illinois.
ADM processes something like 50% of the world soy in Decatur. The whole town smells like a tofu eater puked in the corner.
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--Man, when I was passing thru Decatur in the 70's and 80's, the smell of old "Stinky Staley" always used to remind me of McDonald's french fries... mmmm
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Enough reason to move.
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Likely your scientific evaluation missed salt's inherent ability to retard bacterial feeding.
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Parent is(n't) clarifying that the brine will be washed long after the summer comes.
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"Milwaukee doesn't have icy roads in summer.
Fact not in evidence.
Re:Smell? (Score:5, Insightful)
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If you spread this stuff in the billions of gallons all over the state, I do no care when you do it, the entire state is going to smell.
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Cheese brine != cheese (Score:1)
It's actually a waste product that is mostly salt water.. but thanks for the usual Slashdot quality journalism.
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don't blame slashdot editors for this one.. the article at the new york fucking times uses "cheese" (only, not paired with 'brine') in its own headline.
Typo in headline (Score:5, Informative)
Cats (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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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 ...
You obviously don't know cats; they like cheese too. Or at least our cats do. That means you can save on the fish spray...
Re:Cats (Score:4, Funny)
Just for fun....Add Macaroni (Score:2)
Whey too expensive (Score:5, Funny)
Although I suppose it curd work.
Re:Whey too expensive (Score:4, Funny)
Where there's a wheel there's a whey.
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Cheesy humor to be sure.
Bay View is a neighborhood, not a city! (Score:1)
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.
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No surprise.
Obligatory Sheogorath cry... (Score:3)
Use of whey (Score:2)
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.
Why cheese brine? (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:1)
cheese shortages at local cheese shops leads to widespread cat famine.
Calcium Magnesium Acetate (CMA) works great (Score:2)
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 [google.com]
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That was my first thought. All they're doing is just finding another source of NaCl. They shouldn't be trying to spend less on salting roads - they should be spending more as the current strategy is penny wise and pound foolish.
Many have argued that switching to organic salts would cost a bit more in the salt budget, but would easily pay for itself many times over in reduced road maintenance and increased car longevity.
We'll never see it happen though - society is WAY too short-sighted for that.
Ched (Score:1)
"Just remember: use pro-vo-lone-ay on the stone-ay."
Not needed in Montreal (Score:2)
The roads are in such a bad condition, it's almost as if there are snow threads in the asphalt itself...
mold-inducing bacteria, what could go wrong? (Score:1)
Ik ruik business ! (Score:2)
Henk-Jan maak de kooien klaar, we hebben nieuwe klanten! ;)