1a. Labneh cheese is done by taking goat’s milk yogurt or quality full-fat cow’s milk yogurt and salt. We first stir the salt into the yogurt, and we put this in a cheesecloth and tie it into a ball. Then we need to set it in a sieve over a bowl and let it sit for 12 to 24 hours in the refrigerator. With this, the whey is then strained out and we will finally have Labneh cheese to which we can add other seasonings and enjoy with bread, chips, or our favorite snack.
1b. If I were a cheese or pickle factory, I would prevent the salt wastewater to go into the sewage. Our group thought we could propose the idea of utilizing a material that would absorb the salt to then be filtered out and reused. This material would follow the same system as granulated activated carbon which will sink once it has absorbed the salt as it has a greater density than water. The material could then be sent back to the company that provided it so that they can extract the salt and repurpose it for uses such as road salting and drilling mud. This would prolong the life span of the salt and provide a more circular model.