ETHANOL: ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS AND PROBLEMS

From "Environment Brazil" ("Ambiente Brasil")

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Some environmental issues must be addressed for ethanol to really become a sustainable fuel. These problems stem from the facts, among others, that planting sugar cane is a monoculture; that the employees hired by farmers, especially in Brazil’s less-developed regions, work under primitive conditions; and that the crop is harvested in a manner that often resorts to burning the sugar cane, a practice which has dire environmental consequences.

Burning the straw from the sugar cane plantation is done to make manual labor cheaper and easier, increasing each worker’s productivity from two to five tons per day. The costs of loading and transportation are also reduced, and the mills have their efficiency raised, as they do not have to stop to have the straw removed. On the other hand, when these practices are used over an area of 3.5 million hectares (approximately 8,650,000 acres), they can have disastrous effects on the environment.

Several studies have concluded that burning the residue from sugar cane plantations releases carbon-based gases, ozone, nitrogen gases and sulfur (which is responsible for acid rain), in addition to also producing soot (which contains carcinogenic substances). Burning also provokes significant losses of nutrients in the soil and tends to lead to the development of erosion and weeds, as the soil is less protected. Hospitalization due to respiratory problems, intoxications, and asphyxiation increases considerably during the burning season.

There are also problems with the effluents that come from industrially processing sugar cane. If possible, these effluents should be treated and used as fertilizers. Without proper treatment, effluents ejected into rivers jeopardize the survival of several fresh water animals and plants. They also affect the low-income population, which depends on fishing in local streams and lakes for a living.

My comments on the piece above: the practices described (burning straw and used cane, harsh work conditions) have marked most of Brazil's 500+ years of experience with sugar cane. But as the field develops further, mechanization is becoming increasingly common and sound environmental practices have been adopted. The practices above are not the norm, for example, in Sao Paulo state, Brazil's most-developed area. Unfortunately, however, they are more common in other parts of the country, most notably in Brazil's Northeast, the least-developed region. H.O.

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