The average cow produces about 35 gallons of waste per day. One thousand
cows on a large dairy farm create a waste stream equal to that of
20,000 humans. Cow manure is often stored in ponds, spread over fields
or hauled away at substantial cost to the farmer. Integrity Ag Systems
has developed technology to help family and family-factory dairy farms
create a manure management system that prevents non-point source
pollution, reduces a farm's carbon footprint, captures methane for use
as a bio-energy source and recovers material for re-use as animal
bedding. That adds up to more profit, less waste and improved
environmental stewardship for the company's customers.
The company has installed more than 120 agricultural waste control
systems since its inception in 2001. Filling a major need--manure
mismanagement is one of the leading causes of water contamination in the
U.S. and increasingly the focus of government regulation--Integrity
uses a composting and sequestration process that captures undigested
nutrient materials that form the bulk of manure and which can be reused
as "green sawdust" or sold when separated, sterilized and dried. One of
Integrity's fluidized-bed anaerobic digesters captures methane that can
be used to supply all the energy a farm needs. Farmers can spend up to
$60,000 annually on sawdust alone.
The company received $125,000 from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of
Central and Northern Pennsylvania early in 2009 to add sales, service
and engineering staff. Also in 2009, it introduced its packaged system
that allows dairy producers to make sanitized bedding from the
undigested plant cellulose in manure produced by their animals.