6. Environment >
6.4 Water Use & Wastewater >
6.4.2 High Strength Dairy Waste
Product Waste Management
Product waste, otherwise known as High Strength Dairy Waste (HSDW), represents one of the Company’s greatest environmental impacts. Ice cream contains many ingredients with
high levels of sugar and fat which, without proper management at a wastewater treatment facility, can negatively impact aquatic environments.
Consistent with our performance on other environmental goals, we reduced the amount of high strength dairy waste generated on a normalized basis in 2006. Both manufacturing plants successfully met their established goals, as indicated in the table below. Reductions were achieved through on-going efficiencies and attention to waste reduction.
We manage our HSDW in two ways:
- through the use of permitted manure pits on Vermont farms;
- through the Intervale Center’s composting facility in Burlington Vermont.
The following chart shows how much HSDW we managed through our two options:
