The Wayne Economic Development Corp. recently gave its Innovator of the Year award to the business based in the Poconos town of Lakeville. Every year Sculpted Ice Works makes about 12,000 300-pound blocks of ice. In carvers’ hands they become beautiful displays destined for weddings, corporate parties and special events in Northeastern Pennsylvania and beyond.
Owner Mark Crouthamel explains that a proper ice sculpture needs to be made of clear ice with no air bubbles. To achieve that, Sculpted Ice Works uses circulation pumps to fill huge tanks with water in a way that forces it to freeze from top to bottom, not from the outside in.
And Crouthamel’s business works to be as sustainable as possible. Ice shavings are reclaimed and added to the tanks to become part of new ice blocks. The plastic liners inside the block molds are recycled by a local company that turns them into pellets that are made into new products. The location of Sculpted Ice Works a once-languishing former lumber yard, Crouthamel notes has an on-site well that provides the water for the ice. Each day’s water supply is withdrawn from the well over a four-hour period so the well has a chance to replenish itself.
Source: Mark Crouthamel, Sculpted Ice Works
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen
