Final Take Away AND Most Likely to Succeed Activity
Submitted by Tamara Moore on Fri, 2016-07-15 00:00
Today's most interesting take away was the Simplot Factory Tour. I have always been interested in factory production and environmental impact and it was very interesting to see the quantity of water flowing through the French fry processing plant and to learn that 80% of it was cleaned and reused. There remaining 20% was treated and used to water surrounding farm fields. This was amazing to me! They are actually a zero return plant meaning none of the water they use is put into the Boise River. What an outstanding model of resource use and convervation. It was also super cool to see the production process and the engineering and robotics involved.
The second blog prompt we had today talked about the activity we have done this week that we are most likely to use in the classroom. I have already talked about this some- it is the crumpled paper mountain range idea. I have been working with Ben McCrea to make an adaptation and expansion on this idea to help our students better understand the role of water in the emergence of civilization; especially in relation to Mesopotamia. Watch for further information in our digital project file!
Comments
Did you want fry sauce?
It really got me that it was a zero emission plant. I never thought about all the water that was used during the process of making my "fix", The fact that they can relcaim the used water and use it again, very impressive. That what was not able to use goes to the farm fields.
And robots to boot what is not to love, just make sure not to be standing in the water when you plug all that in!
Day 5: Simplots
Returned from the wilderness! I remember hearing about the Simplot processing plant having a zero percent return of water to the Boise river, but I thought that was just a story. I am so glad to learn that it was not just a story. Living close to the Heyburn Plant (before it shut down) everyone assumed that Simplot dumped waste water into the Snake River, but I never actually heard whether that was true or not. Several members of my family had worked in the plant here and it was a large part of the economics for as long as I could remember. We now have a plant that produces dog food from soybeans or what ever and the air pollution is disturbing. The river here even smells like sewage now. I would like to know what exactly they are doing there and why it smells so awful. I wish that other factories could be more like the Simplot factory and be aware of their impact on the environment. The river here doesnt look or smell the same as it did when I was a kid and I believe pollution is to blame. I would love for the heads of these factories to follow simplot's terrific model for conservation and use of resources.
I have no idea what exactly I plan to use from this workshot just yet... I will probably use the crumpled paper mountain range and I hope a ton of other things can be adapted into my lessons.
Thanks for this week and this opportunity. I loved it!
Zero emissions
I love to hear stories about companies that have figured it out. I lived next to an onion processing company in Fruitland for 8 very LONG years. The smell from thier processing water ponds was absolutely horrible. Then they would take that water and slowly leak it over a field of some kind of plant growth, and excess water would slowly drain into the canal next to it and the aquafir below. Now I have no idea if/what chemicals were used in the process, but the smell that was produces was so horrible. I hope that company can take lessons from a place like Simplot and find a way to be less impactful on the community in all manors!