I love cottage cheese because it packs a lot of protein and pairs nicely with sweet or savory dishes. But I’ll be honest… dairy generates a lot of plastic waste.
TLDR: My favorite way to purchase Cottage Cheese is bulk. It’s more expensive, but if you think about the alternative (container taking 500+ years to break down) I’m happy to pay a premium for cottage cheese.
Plastic is a synthetic and highly malleable material made from a broad range of organic
polymers. Enough plastic is thrown away each year to completely circle the earth four
times. On average, an American throws away an estimated amount of 185 pounds of
plastic annually. Plastic is one of the types of waste that takes the longest to
decompose. On average, it takes plastic items up to 1000 years to break down fully.
Although certain plastics take less time, it still takes everyday plastic bags 10-20 years
to break down. A plastic bottle can take up to 450 years to finally decompose.
Can you enjoy cottage cheese without accumulating more plastic waste? Certainly.
There are 4 ways to go plastic free when it comes to cottage cheese:
- Make it yourself. You will be amazed at how easy it is, and you probably have the ingredients in your kitchen right now.
- Buy from a deli. This can be quite expensive if you are wanting a lot to use in recipes throughout the week, as I found!
- Find a farm that will sell it to you bulk. I have yet to find a farm that has bulk cottage cheese for sale. It’s worth a shot though, and I’ll continue to research this option.
- Skip it. Dairy causes a lot of inflammation!
Behold… my adventure!