NewsWhore
05-31-2011, 03:00 PM
Bananas and rice are the main crops harvested in much of the area served by the North Yaque River and provide jobs for tens of thousands of workers. On the other hand, these two crops are also producing hundreds of tons of residuals that range from plastic banana-stem wrappers to heavy concentrations of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium- laced waters from the rice fields.
A report from the United Nations Human Development Office says that the major impact of the rice crop is the indiscriminate use of pesticides without proper controls, while the issue with the banana crop is the discarding of the plastic bags used to protect banana stems during their final stages of development. The blue bags contain a pesticide that is used to kill a type of tick, and therefore they cannot be easily reused. The white bags used in organic banana cultivation can be recycled. The problem is that it is difficult to collect the used bags for recycling and they usually end up decorating the roadsides or floating down the river, polluting the water.
See: http://odh.pnud.org.do/
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#3)
A report from the United Nations Human Development Office says that the major impact of the rice crop is the indiscriminate use of pesticides without proper controls, while the issue with the banana crop is the discarding of the plastic bags used to protect banana stems during their final stages of development. The blue bags contain a pesticide that is used to kill a type of tick, and therefore they cannot be easily reused. The white bags used in organic banana cultivation can be recycled. The problem is that it is difficult to collect the used bags for recycling and they usually end up decorating the roadsides or floating down the river, polluting the water.
See: http://odh.pnud.org.do/
More... (http://www.dr1.com/index.html#3)