Agriculture and Environment: Tea

Environmental Impacts of Production: Processing Waste

Processing activities in the tea sector do not pose significant environmental problems.

In fact, those activities have been categorised as "low polluting" by Sri Lanka's Central Environmental Authority (UNESCAP 2002).

Tea waste is the sole tea processing by-product. It is mixed with lime before being dumped. This alters the soil pH, making it unsuitable for tea cultivation (Fareed 1996), but it is still a valuable soil amendment for any other crop that does not require soil to be as acidic as tea.

In addition, tea production machinery is cleaned using a detergent that has caustic soda base, which is often dumped untreated into local water systems (Fareed 1996).