The city of Milwaukee has an interesting new take on making icy roads safe – cheese brines.
The city’s Department of Public Works will go ahead this winter with a pilot program to determine whether cheese brine — a liquid waste product left over from cheesemaking — can be added to rock salt and applied directly to the street.
There is one downside: The city says cheese brine has a distinctive odor.
A report prepared by the city’s Department of Public Works notes that Milwaukee, like most cities, relies on rock salt as its primary de-icer on roads. Rock salt, according to the report, is plentiful, inexpensive and very effective.
But some concerns have been raised that the use of rock salt has a long-term impact on roads and the environment. In the winter of 2008, for instance, nearly 100,000 tons of rock salt was spread on the city’s 1,418 miles of roads.
Tiny Polk County, in the northwest part of the state, has been using cheese brine since 2009. According to the city report, Polk County saved approximately $40,000 in the first year by using cheese brine as a pre-wet agent to salt or a combination of salt/sand.
Source: Journal Sentinel