Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumNot A Joke - Wisconsin Clearing Icy Roads Using Cheese Brine (Provolone, Mozz Best)
MILWAUKEE In a state whose license plates advertise it as Americas Dairyland, where lawmakers once honored the bacterium in Monterey Jack as the states official microbe and where otherwise sober citizens wear foam cheesehead hats, road crews are trying to thaw freezing Wisconsin streets with a material that smells a little like mozzarella.
This month, Milwaukee began a pilot program to repurpose cheese brine for use in keeping 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, said Jeffrey A. Tews, the fleet operations manager for the public works department, which has thrice spread the cheesy substance in Bay View, a neighborhood on Milwaukees 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.
EDIT
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/24/us/wisconsin-finds-another-role-for-cheese-de-icing-roads.html?ref=us&_r=0
htuttle
(23,738 posts)And beer comes out of the bubblers.
dragonlady
(3,577 posts)For DUers from outside Wisconsin, bubbler = drinking fountain.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)TlalocW
(15,384 posts)Owner: Finest in the district!
Customer: Explain the logic underlying that conclusion, please.
Owner: Well, it's so clean, sir!
Customer: It's certainly uncontaminated by cheese....
Owner: Ah, well, you see... we had a big snowstorm last night, and... it's all over the streets.
TlalocW
hatrack
(59,587 posts)And now, some cheese, my good man!
iandhr
(6,852 posts)Whats the state motto of Wisconsin.
"Live brie or die"