10-8 IAT Dairy Miracle

Dr. Erik Coats, University of Idaho Associate Professor of Civil Engineering. "The research group, our focus is on resource recovery, we see a lot of value in waste streams that everybody else just wants to dispose of. There is carbon, electrons, nutrients, there are opportunities to leverage microbial processes that bacteria can perform to capture, recover and convert those nutrients into something of value. That is what we do. We combine fermentation and aerobic treatment and convert the manure to a biodegradable plastic." After hearing that statement, I called Bob Naerbout, Executive Director of the Idaho Dairyman's Association. "With all of the travails in the dairy business, Bob, and we have talked over the years about challenges and hard times and who would have thunk that one of the best and most enlightening stories, and I think putting a smile on the face of the dairy industry, is the fact that we have the potential to turn cow manure into biodegradable plastic. What a wonderful revelation. Well Dave, let us face and admit the truth, there is a lot of value in the byproducts of the dairy industry and one of those byproducts is manure. There are a lot of nutrient values but now there is also a strong environmental value to make a biodegradable plastic. So how great can it be? We can take milk and feed it to a youngster and you can have that youngster wrapped in a diaper that is made from a biodegradable plastic that is made from the dairy industry and that diaper can go into a biodegradable plastic made from the dairy industry. It is almost like a full cycle here. It's almost like an environmentalists dream come true. (Laughter) and it is hard to come by statements like that, Bob, when we fight the EPA all the time.