Luckily, innovation shines through in the toughest challenges, and in 2009 Polk County, Wisconsin challenged the norm and spread cheese brine all over their roads instead of rock salt—and it worked.
The irony is too rich: The home of the Green Bay Packers, or the Cheese Heads, chooses to spread their dangerous icy roads with the creamy, curdled stuff. Cheese brine is the the salty liquid byproduct that fancy little gourmet mozzarella balls come in. It's pretty abundant when Wisconsin dairies are producing about 2.8 billion pounds of cheese a year.
The brine is used to add salt to soft cheeses quickly. Since it's so salty and in need of recycling anyway, it was used to de-ice the roads. Polk County saved $40,000 on rock salt and sand in the first year with the dairy saving $30,000 in disposal and treatment costs.
Thanks to the lower freezing point and "pre-wetting" agent that keeps it on the road, it tends to work much better than the common alternative. Winter innovation at work!
