Due to these actions, plants and trees which are essential for preventing soil erosion are lost, further exacerbating the problem of poor soil fertility in the region. An additional environmental problem due to expansion of coca fields includes air pollution in September and August as producers slash and burn forests to open up new lands for production. A different kind of environmental problem occurs during the growth process of the coca crop. To maximize profits, producers often use large quantities of pesticides, weed killers, and fertilizers on their crops. These chemicals affect the soil, and contaminate waterways, which, in turn affect the plant and animal species in the immediate and surrounding areas.
Additional deforestation takes place during the transportation phase of the product.
Since the cocaine industry is illegal, producers must set up obscure air strips in the Amazon jungle to not only fly in the raw coca to processing plants, which are scattered throughout the Amazon region, but to fly out the final product. The processing of the raw coca into cocaine also has detrimental effects on the environment. Coca laboratories, or processing plants, use huge amounts of toxic chemicals to produce the final product. After the chemicals are used, the waste is simply dumped onto the ground, or directly into rivers. Chemical wastes include kerosene, sulfuric acid, lime, calcium carbide, acetone, toluene, and ethyl ether.