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Written by Stephen Messenger, a Treehugger blogger

Agent Orange is one of the most devastating weapons of modern warfare, a chemical which killed or injured an estimated 400,000 people during the Vietnam War — and now it’s being used against the Amazon rainforest. According to officials, ranchers in Brazil have begun spraying the highly toxic herbicide over patches of forest as a covert method to illegally clear foliage, more difficult to detect that chainsaws and tractors. In recent weeks, an aerial survey detected some 440 acres of rainforest that had been sprayed with the compound — poisoning thousands of trees and an untold number of animals, potentially for generations.

Officials from Brazil’s environmental agency IBAMA were first tipped to the illegal clearing by satellite images of the forest in Amazonia; a helicopter flyover in the region later revealed thousands of trees left ash-colored and defoliated by toxic chemicals. IBAMA says that Agent Orange was likely dispersed by aircraft by a yet unidentified rancher to clear the land for pasture because it is more difficult to detect than traditional operations that require chainsaws and tractors.

Last week, in another part of the Amazon, an investigation conducted by the agency uncovered approximately four tons of the highly toxic herbal pesticides hidden in the forest awaiting dispersion. If released, the chemicals could have potentially decimated some 7,500 acres of rainforest, killing all the wildlife that resides there and contaminating groundwater. In this case, the individual responsible was identified now faces fines nearing $1.3 million.

According to a report from Folha de São Paulo, the last time such chemicals were recorded in use by deforesters was in 1999, but officials say dispensing the devastating herbicide may become more common as officials crack down on environmental crimes.

“They [deforesters] have changed their strategy because, in a short time, more areas of forest can be destroyed with herbicides. Thus, they don’t need to mobilize tree-cutting teams and can therefore bypass the supervision of IBAMA,” says Jerfferson Lobato of IBAMA.

While Agent Orange was originally designed to clear forest coverage in combat situations, its use became a subject of controversy due to its impact on humans and wildlife. During the Vietnam War, the United States military dispersed 12 million gallons of herbicide, impacting the health of some 3 million, mostly peasant, Vietnamese citizens, and causing birth defects in around 500 thousand children. Additionally, the chemical’s effect on the environment have been profound and lasting.

Last month, over three decades after Agent Orange was last used in Vietnam, the US began funding a $38 million decontamination operation there. Meanwhile, in the Brazilian Amazon, the highly toxic chemical was being discovered anew and sprayed over the rainforest.

This post was originally published by Treehugger.

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YouTube – DON’T REVOKE BP’S CORPORATE CHARTER!.

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Your old sofa – and much more – could be composted, say University of Manchester scientists

22 Feb 2010

Polyurethane plastics used to make a host of products from furniture fillings to shoe soles, cable insulation and paints – and which can be difficult to recycle – could soon be degraded in compost heaps, thanks to a study at the University of Manchester.

Dr Geoff Robson and his team at the Faculty of Life Sciences have found that certain fungi can degrade the plastic in soil. Furthermore the rate of degradation increases when the volume of these fungi is increased or nutrients are added to the soil to boost the fungi’s activity.

They are now carrying out further studies to make sure the degradation of polyurethanes does not adversely affect the composting process or its products.

Dr Robson, whose Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) funded study is published in the Applied and Environmental Microbiology, said: “This is a significant finding. Polyurethanes are used to make many, many products and can take up a large amount of volume in landfill sites, which are rapidly running out of space. This makes it a major environmental pollutant.

“This study opens the possibility that fungi could be used to degrade these materials instead of dumping them into landfill sites.”

The team placed polyurethane pieces in soil containing fungi and bacteria. As the polyurethane, which is made from petroleum, degraded, the number of fungi increased as they digested the byproducts, showing that it was indeed the fungi that were breaking down the plastic.

Dr Robson added: “Fungi which naturally occur in soils have a remarkable capacity to degrade dead plants and animals, playing a pivotal and essential role in nutrient cycling in the environment. This study demonstrates some of these fungi also have the ability to degrade man-made polyurethanes.

“We demonstrated increased degradation of polyurethanes when buried in soil either by enhancing the activity of fungi already present by adding nutrients to the soil or by adding specific fungi to the soil that had previously been isolated from the surface of degrading polyurethane.”

The team is now investigating how best to apply their findings to polyurethane waste management. One possible method would be to spray fungi onto the polyurethane but another method would be to compost polyurethane along with other compostable materials – using already existing facilities.

Dr Robson, a biochemist and plant biologist who has studied fungi for many years, said: “Fungi are the classic underdogs. If we didn’t have fungi, we wouldn’t be here – we would be buried under mountains of stuff that they break down for us. They are also a treasure chest of pharmaceutical products, producing not just penicillin but also other antibiotics and immunosuppressant drugs. They are used to make arachadonic acid, the fatty acid essential for brain development in babies and used in baby milk formula, and their enzymes are used to turn milk into cheese, make bread dough rise better, clean our clothes in detergents and make fruit juice amongst many, many other applications.

“There is very little research on fungi compared to other microorganisms and only a fraction of them are actually known – around 20% have been identified.

“This latest finding just shows what amazing organisms they are.”

Notes for editors

The paper ‘Effect of Biostimulation and Bioaugmentation on Degradation of Polyurethane Buried in Soil’, in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, is available.

For more information, a copy of the paper or an interview with Dr Geoff Robson contact Media Relations Officer Mikaela Sitford on 0161 275 2111, 07768 980942 or Mikaela.Sitford@manchester.ac.uk.

via Your old sofa – and much more – could be composted, say scientists (The University of Manchester).

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