Environmental Effects Of Sugar And The Environment

According to the WWF report “Sugar and The Environment” (2004), the yearly consumption of sugar is expanding by around 2 million tons each year. Indeed, the annual consumption is approximately 145 million tons of sugar in 121 countries (“Sugar And The Environment”, 2004); such consumption makes sugar a significant commodity in the economic world. As many countries tend to consume a high amount of sugar; the production of sugar is increasing in these countries. India and Brazil are the largest producers of sugar cane (Saranraj, 2014), this being around 40% of the world’s sugar supplier (Vaughan, 2000). The advertising of sugary foods and drinks costs huge amount of money (Vaughan, 2000). For example, Coca-Cola spent £31.4 million on advertising

The first major environmental damage that sugar causes is pollution. Indeed, sugar mills impact the environment by damaging significant natural areas by producing solid waste, wastewater, emissions and flue gases (World Wildlife Fund, 2016). Moreover, the burning of sugar cane leads to soil degradation by which the quality of the soil decreases and it is also responsible for as much as 30% of the cane nitrogen removal (“Sugar And The Environment”, 2004). Additionally, industrial waste from sugar processing flows into water and leads to the pollution of rivers and seas as well as to massive fish kills (World Wildlife Fund, 2016). Besides water pollution, sugarcane processing causes air pollution from burning sugar canes (Vaughan, 2000). For example, in the state of Sao Paulo, it was found that there was a significant high level of ozone and carbon monoxide around the burnt sugarcane fields (“Sugar And The Environment”, 2004). In addition to air and water pollution, sugar mills are also associated with noise pollution as factories cause loud sounds during manufacturing (Solomon, 2005). A further environmental damage caused by the production of sugar is deforestation. In fact, Vaughan (2000) states that the destruction of habitat and lands such as rainforest, tropical forests, and deserts for plantations leads to the loss of biodiversity. Indeed, according to the article “Brazil Eyes Amazon Sugar Cane Ban” (2009) deforestation has increased in the Amazon and the Pantanal forests because of the rapid spread of the plantation of sugar cane and industrial sugarcane producers. Many countries give around 25% or more of their land for the production of sugarcane (World Wildlife Fund, 2016). Consequently, a major impact to the destruction of habitat is the extinction of species (Vaughan, 2000). In fact, as more habitats being destructed for sugarcane