When it was Earth Day, I posted that farms recycle everyday. When I said that I wasn’t pulling your leg! I plan to prove it today. When we milk cows, the milk is cooled two ways before it is loaded on the truck to go to the plant. One of the ways we do this is with a plate cooler.
Part of the cooling system for the milk
The plate cooler is all the way on the left. What the plate cooler does is it runs the milk through a pipe system and on the outside of the pipe is water being put through. The water cools the milk from 100 degrees down to about 70 degrees in a few seconds. After it’s cooled to 70, it’s will get further cooled to around 35 degrees in the collection tank. The collection tank is refrigerated and will have the milk cooled in a very short time frame, that way we keep the milk fresh at all times of the year.
The water from the plate cooler isn’t contaminated in any way with milk or any other type of organic matter. To be honest with you, the water is like it was never used, but according to government regulations that water has to be collected and put into our nutrient disposal system because it ran through the milking system.
Dairy farmers are always trying to find new ways to conserve water and use less. Instead of just throwing out this water, many farmers reuse it in their barns. In warmer climates, like the southwestern parts of the U.S. they will collect this water and then use is to clean the barn floors. Sadly, this doesn’t work in Michigan because for 6 months out of the year we can’t keep the water from freezing.
The green tube that became a cow waterer!
Instead, on our farm we use the water to hydrate our cows. My father got the idea from some fellow dairy producers and it has become one of his favorite finds! We put the water in a large tank. The waterers are placed in one of the 4 pens and on the way back from the parlor .
Green is for recycling and for happy cows
The cows really do love these waterers! When we first put them in, we had a really hard time keeping water in them. They just loved drinking out of them, which makes us happy!
I hope you enjoyed learning one of the more unique ways that farmers are recyclers everyday. We appreciate being able to reuse our earth’s natural resources.
If we stop to think about the amount of waste that is generated by everyone on the face of the planet on a daily basis, that puts a whole new perspective on the idea of recycling. So, if we really are going to live green, then recycling is a must.
You are so right! If we all did a little extra in regard to recycling it would make a huge difference. That is the reason why my family found it so important to recycle everywhere we can, even if that means extra work from us. Thank you so much for reading and commenting!