Environmental impact of dairy and plant-based milk

Milk is one of those food items which everyone consumes in many ways. And due to various reasons, millions of people all over the world switched to plant-based milk. Some are on the verge of switching as well. But the million dollar question here is, is switching to the plant-based milk from the cow milk is beneficial? Is there any side effect to this? So let’s discuss this here today.

P.S — https://worshipveganism.wordpress.com/2022/09/27/low-calorie-plant-milk/

Here’s the link of my old post on plant milk/plant-based milk/non-dairy milk options.

Dairy industry:

We all have been consuming dairy milk for centuries. But we never thought of the environmental impact. But now we are concerned about it and we all are analysing the recent research reports. Dairy farming causes more greenhouse gas emission compared to other food sectors. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, the dairy milk production increased upto 30% between 2005 and 2015.

Dairy also pollutes air, land and water in the neighbouring areas. As per the Paris Climate Agreement, out of 195 countries, only 92 countries identified themselves as a contributor to the greenhouse gas emission due to heavy livestock farming.

What are the environmental impacts of dairy industry?

Since this is our topic of discussion today, let’s focus on it with facts and figures:

1. Dairy industry weakens the soil at the farms. As the cows, buffalos and other livestock keep walking on the wet soil, that compresses the soil and doesn’t allow the soil to grow plants easily. This is the same result can be seen if heavy machines or vehicles are being used on the same land.

2. Water pollution is also very common in the livestock farming and the neighbouring areas. Water is used at the farms for cleaning the animals, their skin after butchering and so on so forth. So its very obvious that the water will be polluted. Mainly, nitrogen and phosphorus often leaches out from the farms.

3. Deforestation is another deadly environmental impact dairy industry makes. The lands around the farms are being cleaned and the trees are being cut down to grow food for the cattle’s and other livestocks. In Virginia, USA almost 44,000 square miles of land are being required to grow food for the livestocks.

4. About 19-24% of ammonia emission in the air comes from the dairy farms which leads to air pollution. In the recent times, death due to air pollution from the dairy industry outnumbered the deaths due to coal power plants. Sentient Media found that, 12,700 Americans died due to the exposure to the air pollution coming from dairy industries, where only 2,000 Americans died due to coal power plant’s pollution emission.

5. Poor animal health is another aspect we must consider before consuming dairy milk. Mastitis is a very common disease can be found in the livestocks. Almost 5 – 75% of the herds in the animals farming lands can be found infected with Mastitis.

Plant-based milk or plant milk:

In 2019, BBC conducted a research and they found that rice and soy milk are the best plant-based/plant milk/non-dairy milk to consume. Rice milk causes poor gas emissions of about 0.2kg/200ml (a glass of milk) and soy milk causes 0.1kg/200mil of milk gas emissions.

Similarly, the land use data for rice milk is 0.0sq.m. and soy milk takes 0.1sq.m. For water usage, we can clearly say that rice milk consumes about 65 litres of water and soy milk consumes 5 litres of water to produce 200ml of milk. So with this date produced by Poore & Nemecek (2018) it is very much evident that plant milk/plant-based milk/non-dairy milk is way more environment friendly to consume. Its harming the planet less and wasting the planetary resources very less.

Conclusion:

So the above mentioned data can quickly show you the difference. For the past few centuries humans were habitual of consuming cow milk and buffalo milk. Along with this, humans also consumed various other animal milk as per the availability in their regions. But with innovative science and technology, we could make plant milk at home. If you want to avoid the preservation content in the plant milk/non-dairy milk, you can easily make it at home. But while consuming animal milk, you are harming your environment and also spreading pollution on so many levels. At least, let’s not pollute our planet.