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PESTICIDES
An unacceptable risk
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- Pesticides used on your lawn or your neighbor’s can end up inside your home even when the windows are closed. Pesticide residues are tracked indoors by family members and pets, and drift in through cracks and crevices and small openings around windows and doorways.
- Children are much more susceptible to health effects of pesticides than adults. At the same level of exposure they will absorb more pesticides, because they have more skin surface for their size, and take in more breaths per minute. Children’s ability to degrade pesticides in the liver and their immune system protections are not fully developed.
Source: Grass roots environmental education
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HEALTH EFFECTS OF INERT INGREDIENTS
• Pesticide products contain “active” and “inert” ingredients. Active ingredients target pests or act as plant regulators, defoliants, desiccants or nitrogen stabilizers and must be identified on the label. Inert ingredients are not intended to affect a target pest (they areadded to pesticidesto help dissolve active ingredients, make them easier to apply, or preserve them) and they are not identified on pesticide labels.
• The term “inert” is not defined on the basis of toxicity and may present a health risk. Some inert ingredients are suspected carcinogens; others have been linked to central nervous system disorders, liver and kidney damage, birth defects, and some short-term health effects.
• The identity of inerts is protected as a trade secret under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) unless the agency determines that “disclosure is necessary to protect against an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment.”
• Inert ingredients can make up the majority of consumer pesticide products. The New York Attorney General’s office examined pesticide products and found that 90 percent contained over 90 percent inert ingredients. Roundup Fence and Yard Edger, for example, is 99 percent inert ingredients.
Source: ENVIRONMENT & HUMAN HEALTH, INC.
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Avoid Weed and Feed.
Weed and Feed products include both fertilizers and weed killers. In most cases, using this combined product is environmentally-unsound.
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Source: Growgreen.org
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