We all have our favorites when it comes to milk. Some like soy, some like almond and some like good old-fashioned cow's milk.
But each one has a different impact on the environment.
With so many alternative milk options on the market, let’s look at what each milk does to the environment.
Scroll through the charts below to see how each milk affects the environment when it comes to land usage, greenhouse gas emissions and water usage. This data comes from a study published in 2018.
Acoording to the study, cow’s milk isn't the most eco-friendly. Along with deforestation for more farmland, the dairy industry heavily contributes methane and nitrous oxide to our atmosphere.
The National Center for Biotechnology Information states that methane comes from the digestion process of cows and the nitrous oxide comes from fertilized soils and manure management.
The center also says that the dairy industry can supply water sources with nitrogen, phosphorus and fecal bacteria, which causes water contamination and can kill plants and fish.
The most popular non-dairy alternative, almond milk, has it's own drawbacks when it comes to the environment.
Even though they produce low greenhouse gas emissions and use less land than dairy farms, almonds need copious amounts of water to grow. This is a problem since almonds grow in California, a state that deals with drought, fires and heatwaves.
On top of that, almonds are not friendly to our bees. Farms recruit bees to pollinate their almonds every year, and pesticides used on the almonds can harm the bees.
According the the study, some other alternatives to stay away from are:
- Coconut milk
- Rice milk
- Cashew milk
The authors say those milks support a mix of cruel labor practices, large greenhouse gas emissions and high-water usage.
Soy is an eco-friendly plant-based milk alternative. The study found that soybeans take much less water to grow than almonds, and they need less nitrogen fertilizer since they make nitrogen.
You might have heard that soybean farming is a major contributor to deforestation. However, most of this type of farming is to produce animal feed.
Farmers use only a small amount of land to grow organic soybeans, which is used to make soy milk.
Studies say oat milk is the best alternative when it comes to environmental impacts.
The study found it uses the least amount of water and produces fewer carbon emissions.
Although it uses more land than soybeans and almonds, it is considerably less land than what dairy uses.
But the study does warn to make sure to buy a brand that doesn't use glyphosate, a harmful pesticide.
There are plenty of other great options for plant-based milks, some of which you probably didn’t expect.
If you don’t fancy the other milks above, some other great alternatives are pea milk, hazelnut milk, pistachio milk, hemp milk and flax milk. All support a mix of lower greenhouse gas emissions and lower water usage.
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