Anthropocene Magazine · Climate & nature

Recycling Industrial Ice Cream Waste into Valuable Products

Scientists have developed a method to recycle significant amounts of industrial ice cream waste, potentially turning it into renewable resources for fuels, lubricants, and solvents.

Globally, factories discard over 500,000 tons of ice cream waste annually. A new study in Cleaner Engineering and Technology details how dairy fats can be extracted from this waste to serve as raw material for products typically derived from petroleum.

The challenge lies in the composition of ice cream, which contains water, sugar, proteins, and fats. Proteins and milk/egg components coat fat droplets, preventing them from separating and maintaining the dessert's smooth texture, but complicating fat extraction.

Researchers tested two methods to remove these protein coatings. One involved using protease enzymes, while the other used acids or bases to alter the mixture's pH and unfold the proteins.

The base treatment, which raised the pH to 11, proved most effective. It successfully recovered 95% of the fat from waste samples within two hours, achieving up to 85% purity without requiring high heat or expensive enzymes.

This process is estimated to be cost-effective, with extracted fats potentially selling for around $0.40 per gallon, making them cheaper than current feedstocks for fuels and solvents.

While this method addresses factory waste, it does not impact consumer-related ice cream fat consumption. It offers a way to repurpose large quantities of discarded industrial fat.

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