Coffee

Like banana production, growing coffee in Costa Rica is not the best thing for the environment.  It has caused soil erosion, deforestation, and pollution of rivers and streams.  Much of the coffee bean is made up of contaminants and over half of it is thrown away as waste.  Often, farmers just throw the waste into rivers and streams.  At the end of the coffee season, rivers can be found with piles of bean pulp and full of sugar water and contaminants which can destroy life in them and hurt people and animals.  The Costa Rican government is currently working to control the amount of pollution that is getting into rivers and streams from coffee plantations by imposing regulations on the proper way to treat wastes.  However, it doesn't seem to be enough because it is still occurring all over the country.  Farmers need to be educated about what they are doing to the environment and told how they can change their ways.  Their should be some type of program implemented where farmers can take their waste to a company that can dispose of them properly,or even better, find an alternative use for them.  

Deforestation and soil erosion are occurring throughout Costa Rican coffee production areas because farmers are constantly looking to expand their fields so that they can get more return in this growing sector of their economy.  Trees are being cut down to provide more land for production.  There is a new kind of coffee plant coming into the market that does not need shade and can grow in direct sunlight.  It is able to produce three times as much coffee as regular coffee plants.  Despite this benefit, This new plant is causing even more deforestation because trees are not needed for shading.  In order for Costa Rica to become a sustainable economy, they need to do something about the damages they are doing to the environment.  They need to protect their reputation as an eco-friendly country and adopt new ways of farming for both coffee and bananas that are sustainable and do not hurt the environment.  Otherwise, they may encounter expanding liabilities in the future in regard to their harmful effects.