Palm oil and its effects on the global environment
- Randi Pokladnik
- July 2, 2018
- 1654
I have talked about the ecological damage caused by sugar plantations located in the Florida everglades area. This region is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States and home to more than 750 species of birds, mammals, reptiles and fish.
There is another ingredient found in hundreds of prepackaged foods and personal-care products that is just as damaging to the environment: palm oil. Palm oil can be found in anything from nutritional cereal bars to lipstick. It also is used in shampoo, cosmetics, cleaning products and even as an additive to biofuels.
It is estimated that 50 percent of all the products we use on a daily basis have palm oil in them. Palm oil, which comes from the fruit of a palm oil tree, differs from other oils in that it acts as a natural preservative, meaning a longer shelf life for the products that contain it.
Unlike other cooking oils, palm oil has a high smoke point, nearly 450 F. This means it does not break down during cooking. In comparison olive oil’s smoke point is 410 F.
Palm oil is much higher in saturated fats with 6.7 grams in a tablespoon compared to 1.9 grams in olive oil. But it doesn't contain trans fats, and manufacturers take advantage of this when advertising it as trans fat free on food labels.
Palm oil trees need lots of rain and heat and can be grown in places like Africa, Asia and South America. In order to grow palm trees and harvest their fruits, massive quantities of tropical forests and peat swamp forests are cut down, resulting in habitat loss and degradation, which threatens many tropical species. The World Wildlife Fund estimates that an area of rain forest the size of 300 football fields is cut each hour in order to plant palm oil trees.
Once these rain forests and carbon-rich peatlands are cleared for palm oil plantations, the land has lost its ability to sequester carbon dioxide and instead contributes to the acceleration of climate change.
The Union of Concerned Scientists reported that a 2011 study estimated total carbon stored by the earth's tropical forests at 271 billion tons or about seven times the total carbon emissions from fossil fuel use in the year 2008.
Palm oil makes up about 28 percent of the global biofuel industry. Indonesia and Malaysia are by far the largest producers of biodiesel palm oil. This process, while allowing for the replacement of fossil fuels as a fuel source, does in fact generate greenhouse gases. Large amounts of palm oil mill effluent are released from these mills.
For every ton of crude palm oil produced, 2-3 tons of wastes are produced. This waste contains some oil but is primarily fibers and water. This waste is discharged into streams, rivers and ponds. As these wastes break down via aerobic digestion, oxygen is used and carbon dioxide is created.
Biogases like methane also are released during production, and this gas contributes to climate change as well. From 2001-10, Indonesia’s emissions of carbon from palm oil production increased from 216-268 million tons. This is equivalent to the energy emissions from 25 million homes in a year.
A Google Earth imagery study shows that in Southeast Asia, 45 percent of all palm oil plantations were in areas that were once rain forests. For South America, that number was 31 percent. These are areas of high vulnerability when it comes to mammal and bird species.
Some species currently at risk include the Sumatran elephant and tiger and the pygmy elephant. One species that has become a major factor and the poster child in the fight to curtail increased production of palm oil is the orangutan, a species that shares 97 percent of our DNA.
Even after the plantations have been established, the starving orangutans return and are “frequently killed in the most brutal ways as agricultural pests,” according to the Orangutan Foundation International.
Scientists in Abu Dhabi are exploring the use of a type of algae that can be grown in fresh and salt water and is found in the United Arab Emirates as an alternative to this ever-increasing food product. The species makes its own palmitic acid, the fatty acid found in palm oil.
There also are studies looking into the use of certain strains of yeast. Scientists at the University of Bath are looking at a strain of yeast, which can be grown on agricultural wastes and produce oil similar to that of palm oil.
Additionally the focus group Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil has been created and is examining the entire process of palm oil production to find more environmentally friendly ways to grow, process and transport the product.
For some, like the British food retailer Iceland, these alternatives cannot come soon enough as they plan to ban the use of palm oil in all of their own brand-label foods by the end of 2018. Its hope is to save some of the remaining orangutan habitat.
We as consumers can do our homework and voice our concerns to our grocery store chains and cosmetic companies. Until alternatives can be produced on a commercial scale, our only recourse is to read the ingredients list and choose not to buy products containing palm oil.