Using organic waste to clean up pesticide pollution

Research Lead

A Spanish-Moroccan research team has developed an environmentally-friendly way of reducing pesticide pollution in water using natural organic waste materials, such as olive and date stones, and the leaves of plants including the rock rose and the radish.

The researchers at the Analytical and Environmental Chemistry of the University of Seville, working with counterparts from the University of Abdelmalek Essaadi in Morocco, have shown these materials can absorb pesticides.

The scientists studied the absorption of 22 different types of pesticides by peanut shells, bamboo, and olive, avocado and date stones, and the crushed leaves of various plants, including eucalyptus, radish, oregano, oleander and rock rose.

Date and olive stones had the greatest absorption capacity, at 93 per cent and 90 per cent respectively, while the values for rock rose and radish leaves were 80 per cent.

“Directly applying natural organic absorbents to cultivated soil not only helps to stop the pesticides leaching away and thus reducing their efficiency, but also helps to improve soil fertility,” said Hicham El Bakouri, one of the researchers.

El Bakouri said that using this crushed organic matter on the soil also helps pollutants to biodegrade by increasing levels of microbiological activity and reducing the vertical movement of pesticides from the surface down into the groundwater.

El Bakouri noted that the contamination of water resources by pesticides used in agriculture or harmful substances from industry is a problem worldwide.

“In many countries around the world, especially those with fewer resources, this type of water contamination represents a serious problem, and we need to find economical, environmentally-sustainable solutions, which are easy to put into use, such as the method we have proposed,” he said.