Measuring antibiotics levels close to their source has several advantages. One is less milk waste, which also means less energy consumed due to a more efficient milk production. On the same note the climate effect originating from milk production is decreased. The major part of greenhouse gasses from cattle is methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). Both of these have a greenhouse effect contribution of 25-30 times that of CO2. In Denmark, production of one liter of milk emits 0.9 kg of CO2 equivalents regarding greenhouse effect. There are about 150-200 incidents per year alone in Denmark of milk trucks carrying antibiotics contaminated milk and each truck is loaded with approximately 30 ton of milk. This in total cause an emission of approximately 5.400 ton of CO2 equivalents per year in Denmark only. Denmark has the on average most efficient and second largest milk farms in Europe. This means that the greenhouse effect from 1 L of milk produced will be higher in most other countries. Danish milk production is about 4% of the EU15 countries (~3.5% of the EU28 countries) according to 2015 statistics. Thus, within the EU15 countries there is a potential of saving at least 130.000 ton of CO2 equivalents per year by bringing the antibiotics measurement to all EU15 farms. Great Britain, which together with Sweden probably will be the second market where the PlastiSens ApS technology is introduced, has a milk production of about three times that of Denmark.
Additionally, introducing the technology has a significant economic impact. When a milk truck has been found to be contaminated, the farmer with antibiotics in their milk is asked to pay for the all the milk in the truck as well as for cleaning of the truck's milk tank. This adds up to about 13.000 Euro, a quite considerable amount for most farmers.
Antibiotics use and spread of antibiotics through food intake is a great concern as antibiotic resistant bacteria is an increasing problem with fatal consequences, especially in pig farms and in the human digestive system. Detection of the antibiotics close to the source can limit the spreading of antibiotics and thereby the evolution of antibiotic resistant bacteria.
PlastiSens is not aware of any other feasible solutions for monitoring antibiotics contamination at the farm level, and collaborating leading dairy companies are stating that they have not been presented with any other technology than that of PlastiSens ApS, which can measure antibiotics fast and simple enough for them to be practically usable at the farms.
