Truck Wash Leaves Milky Finish
That’s because it was bathed in a sprinkle of milk to get the road soot off.
Actually, it was washed with water that came from milk, a product that was once dumped at the company’s Chandler waste water treatment facility.
James Roberson, vice president of manufacturing for Farm Fresh Food and Beverage, came up with the idea for the byproduct last year. He thought the water, which is left over when milk is condensed, could be put to use rather than put down the disposal drain.
About 35 tractors and trailers are washed daily with the water, which contains no milk particles. However, some milk bacteria remain, which is the reason the water has been relegated to washing trucks and trailers.
After the “cow water” is used for washing trucks, it is piped to the company’s nearby waste water treatment facility, where it is mixed with other liquid waste from the plant.
Once treated through an aeration process, the water is used to irrigate a 260-acre tract near the dairy and treatment facility. Hay is grown on the plot and is harvested by a neighboring farmer.
lthough a little money is earned through the process, and a little more is saved, the process is more than simple economics.
“It’s being a good neighbor,” Roberson said.
When the dairy plant opened in 1987, its waste water was pumped into the city’s sewer system and sent to the city treatment plant. But a couple of years ago, the city of Chandler ran into difficulties and needed a new plant.
“Since our waste accounted for 80% of their volume, the city felt, rightly so, that we should bear a significant amount of the cost for a new plant,” Roberson said. “So we bought the 620 acres next to the plant to build our own treatment facility.”
Converting the land into grassland and building the plant was not an easy task.
“It was not good land to begin with,” said Tom Massey, the plant’s chief engineer. “It had a deep ravine, and since 1930, there had been about 32 oil wells sunk there.
“That meant there was a lot of cleanup to do to get rid of the oil field wastes that were left behind,” he said.
In the end, the plant was built, the waste water flowed and Farm Fresh proceeded with its good neighbor policy.
It is hard to break out the cost-savings figures on using the cow water instead of fresh water to wash trucks.
“We buy about 300,000 gallons to 350,000 gallons of water a day from the city of Chandler,” Massey said. “So saving 10,000 gallons a day is only a minuscule part of that. It’s nothing, really.”
However, the company gains a feeling of contributing to the community.
Because Farm Fresh buys all its milk from outside producers, the Chandler dairy sometimes ends up with a surplus, which is sold to other dairy operations.
“We decided to condense this milk, since it’s cheaper to transport evaporated milk than it is to transport whole milk,” Roberson said.
Some of this condensed milk — which starts with about 12% solids and ends with about 35% solids — is used internally to make ice cream. Workers also are experimenting with converting some of the condensed milk into powder form, which is used in other milk products.
During the condensation cycle, the water is pulled off and converted to steam. The plant then changes it back to water, which is pumped into the storage silo to await the next day’s truck washing operation.
