Milk Losses
john w. rugaber, District Engineer
Pet Milk Company
Greenville, Tennessee
Fifty years ago, yes, even 20 years or less ago, it was not uncommon
for local business men and farmers to invite milk plants to locate in
certain areas and freely offer streams for cooling water supply and
waste disposal as incentives for locating at a particular town. These
same facilities were offered to numerous other industries as well,
with the result that streams, in many cases, became overloaded with
wastes and now the problem is, what to do about it?
Frequently the statement is made that some industry is finding
profit in processing their waste. Often, comments are made suggesting
the dairy industry should do the same. Some branches of the industry
have been fortunate enough to find by-products which will at least
pay for their manufacturing cost. This is primarily true in production
of cheese and butter.
Approximate production figures indicate that there was 120 billion
pounds of milk produced in 1951. Of this amount, about 24 per cent
was used in butter production and 9 per cent for cheese.
Most dairy wastes are collected in the floor drains and are diluted
by the time they reach a point where they can be collected in any
volume. This contamination and dilution of the milk makes by-product
utilization impractical by known methods for most of the  industry.
With the possibility of by-products eliminated it is necessary to
consider the disposal of wastes by other methods. Until recent years,
there seemed to be a tendency to design disposal plants according to
existing sewer loads and these high loadings combined with expensive
types of plant designs made the cost for disposal plants almost prohibitive.
After working in various milk plants, visiting numerous other milk
plants, and discussing the problem with men in disposal plant occupations, it was concluded that: When taking up the matter of waste
disposal, one must take up the matter of waste reduction at the same
time, or preferably before even determining the magnitude of the
disposal problem. It seems as though the natural reaction of the
average man when faced with a problem is to work on overcoming
the effect rather than isolating and combating the basic cause. The
original milk loss is the basic cause of the disposal problem and a fight
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