MILK IN RIVERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 May 1942, Page 4

MILK IN RIVERS

SAVED FOR BRITAIN’S MOTHERS AND CHILDREN. Britain’s nursing mothers and children will have another 3,000,000 gallons of milk a year as the result of a new method of dealing with waste water in dairies and milk-receiving depots. An enormous quantity of water is used for washing out churns, lids and troughs, as well as for cleaning down floors on which milk has been spilt, and this waste water frequently carries away from 0.5 to 1.0 per cent of the milk handled. Thus, if the quantity of washing water is about the same as the quantity of milk dealt with, a milk depot handling 10,000 gallons of milk a day> may also discharge each day 10,000 gallons of waste water containing from 60 to 100 gallons of milk. In addition to this wastage there is also the trouble caused by the effect of the polluted water on streams into which it has been discharged. Experiments carried out in the laboratories and on a large scale show that these waste waters can be purified by filtration in percolating filters. During the investigations, milk depots in Britain and in other countries were visited, and experiments were carried out in the laboratories of the Rothanisted Experimental Station. It was soon found that, by simple modifications in the operations in depots and factories and by greater attention to detail, the quantities of milk and of milk products carried away in waste water could be greatly reduced.