Teens are dumping milk on store floors to protest the ‘destructive’ dairy industry
The latest environmentalist trend is here: pouring out milk in grocery stores.
All across the United Kingdom, teenagers concerned about the environment are doing “milk pours.” The new trend involves going into grocery stores, picking up cartons of cow-produced milk, and pouring out their contents, according to the animal rights group Animal Rebellion.
Videos that have popped up on social media show teens pouring milk onto the floor, over sales counters, and elsewhere in the store.
“The dairy industry is incredibly environmentally destructive. The world’s top 5 meat and dairy corporations are now responsible for more GHG emissions than Exxon, Shell or BP,” the organization said in a tweet Saturday.
“We NEED a plant-based future now,” it added.
The account also shared a report from Grain, an international non-profit organization, and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), which calls for the planet to “dramatically reduce its greenhouse gas emissions” by eliminating meat and dairy consumption.
“Animal farming is THE leading cause of the loss of our wildlife and natural ecosystems,” the group said in another tweet, which also called for the government to “support farmers in an urgent transition to a plant based food system and allow the freed up land to be rewilded in order to restore wildlife populations.”
Several countries around the world have imposed regulations on the agriculture industry, such as limits on nitrogen emissions caused by dairy production. Environmentalists have encouraged the use of dairy alternatives, such as almond, soy, coconut and oat milk, though these too have been criticized.
The Biden administration has indicated that it intends to push changes on the US farming industry to tackle climate change.
In 2020, the EPA estimated that 11% of the U.S.’s total greenhouse gas emissions came from the agriculture sector, compared to 27% from transportation, 25% from energy, and 24% from industry.