COSTA RICA
Standard Fruit Company, Costa Rica's biggest banana producer, has made history by becoming the first food-growing company in the world to receive the "green seal" of the prestigious International Standards Organisation (ISO). The ISO 14001 certificate is given in recognition of exemplary environmental management and worker safety standards.
Unfortunately, the company has been responsible for forest destruction, ground and water pollution and rights abuses in Costa Rica. Exporter of the famous Dole brand of bananas, Standard Fruit is condemned by trades union as one of the most hard-line opponents of free labour organisations. In fact, the International Water Tribunal in The Hague had penalised the company six years ago for deforesting hills and contaminating rivers. However, Peter Gilmore, general manager of Standard Fruit, denies any persecution of organised labour. Any problems that may have existed now belong to the past, he says.
Gilmore says the company made a big investment in research and development in order to introduce more eco-friendly methods of cultivating bananas notorious for their high dependence on agrochemical. He says that the company has cut by half its use of chemicals without affecting production.
Standard Fruit has installed water treatment plants in all its plantations to filter pollutants from the water used in packaging plants and irrigation.
The environmental management system places strong emphasis on reusing and recycling materials. With this in mind, says Gilmore, Standard Fruit became shareholder of an innovative recycling venture called Recyplast, the first company in the world to recycle the pesticide-soaked plastic bags used to sheathe banana bunches on the tree. The bags are the biggest solid waste problem in banana plantations, often flowing down rivers into the sea, threatening endangered species like sea turtles that consume these plastic bags, mistaking them for food.
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