Sugarcane waste is a significant problem in Louisiana, as the state has nearly half of the country’s total. Bagasse is the fibrous part left after crushing sugarcane to get the juice. Total estimates vary, but there is between 200,000 and 900,00 metric tons of bagasse that have accumulated in the state. The piles are outside of factories or on farmland. When it is windy, bagasse is blown around, affecting air quality in New Orleans.
A company called Carboniferous applied for a permit to dump sugarcane waste into the Gulf of Mexico, off the Louisiana Coast. With a process called marine anoxic carbon storage, 20 metric tons of sugarcane waste would be dumped into the Orca Basin. That is equivalent to 10 cars worth.
The Orca Basin, located 200 miles off the coast of Louisiana and 2,200 meters deep, contains eight times more salt than ocean water. The basin lacks oxygen and is toxic to marine animals. Carboniferous applied for a research permit under the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act (MPRSA) on May 13, 2025. Researchers believe the bagasse dumped here will not break down due to high salinity.
Carbonferous was unable to do that in the lab. The company hopes to achieve it in the basin. “We couldn’t do this in the lab, and there are insights we’re going to be able to actually get with this plan that are going to justify the effort and the risks,” said Morgan Reed Raven, chief science officer at Carboniferous and assistant professor of earth sciences at UC Santa Barbara.
There are other marine anoxic carbon storage projects. Rewind will dump wood waste from fruit trees into the Black Sea. Shipwrecks at the bottom of the Black Sea have not decayed. Researchers think that agricultural waste will not decay either.
Problems With the Orca Basin Project
The central controversy is whether dumping agricultural waste in the sea through marine anoxic carbon storage is genuinely sustainable. Friends of the Earth, after reviewing Carboniferous’ permit and the EPA fact sheet, found the proposal fails to meet required legal, scientific, and ethical standards. At issue is whether the project represents legitimate research or a cover for illegal waste dumping.
One of the problems FOE found is that Carbonferous would not collect direct samples from the 20 tons of sugarcane waste. Left on the seafloor, there is no plan for T cleanup in the event of a problem, nor are there plans for long-term monitoring. Microbial contamination and methane release are possible.
Another core argument against the project is Carboniferous’s conflict of interest. The company depends on eventually selling carbon credits for ocean dumping on a larger scale. Critics warn that, to meaningfully reduce carbon emissions, this approach would require dumping even more biomass than produced in a year’s corn harvest—raising serious feasibility and sustainability concerns.“The EPA must pump the brakes on all permit applications for marine carbon dioxide removal. These removals are out of line with the country’s restrictive ocean dumping laws and are not authorized by Congress,” said Benjamin Day, Senior Campaigner for Climate and Energy Justice, Friends of the Earth. “We need real solutions to the climate crisis – not speculative, profit-driven schemes that treat the ocean as a dumping ground.”
