Pesticides as environmental hazards

We cannot describe all aspects of pesticides as environmental hazards, but we intend to address certain aspects of this problem many books are available (Carson, 1962 Ecobichon, 2001 Edwards, 1973 Emden, 1996 Graham and Wienere, 1995 Mellanby, 1970 Ratcliff, 1967 Walker et al., 1996). It is also easy to find opinions and facts on the Internet. Our problem is that we meet people who believe that cigarette smoking causes cancer because the tobacco plants are sprayed with insecticides and who at the same time are convinced that food produced without pesticides is always safe. We are therefore often engaged in debates as defenders, and not as critics, to the unnecessary and unsafe use of pesticides, as we should be. But pesticides are poisonous to man, animals, plants, and sometimes to all types of life, as many of us have experienced. 

At the fundamental level of equilibrium modeling the advantages are many. The model can combine a number of compartments through simple relationship to describe a realistic environment within which chemicals can be ranked and compared. Primary compartments that chemicals will tend to migrate toward or accumulate in can be identified. The arrangement of compartments and their volumes can be selected to address specific environmental scenarios. Data requirements are minimal, if the water solubility and vapor pressure of a chemical are known, other properties can be estimated, and a reasonable estimate of partitioning characteristics can be made. This is an invaluable tool in the early evaluation of chemical, whether the model be applied to projected environmental hazard or evaluation of the behavior of a chemical in an environmental application, as with pesticides. Finally, the approach is mathematically very simple and can be handled on simple computing devices. 

Environmentally hazardous projects are those where the risk of accidents is very high, which can result in a major and sometimes even catastrophic chemical pollution of the environment. Frequently, these disasters take casualties among the plant personnel, as well as among the nearby settlements population, which were the cases with the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster in Ukraine, or with the pesticide plant accident in Bhopal, India. 

The disposal of pesticides and pesticide wastes is regulated by the Clean Air Act (CAA), the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Uiabihty Act (CERCUA). This section deals with the regulations for liquid waste disposal, which is mainly under the CWA. However, when the waste is disposed of as a hazardous waste, it is regulated by the RCRA. 

The ECD has seen its greatest utilization in the field of pesticide analysis. Chemicals such as dieldrin, aldrin and DDT are amenable to the ECD. In addition, the environmental hazards of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have been raised as a result of analyses by the ECD. Organometallics are also good electron absorbers. With the aid of halogen derivatization, many classes of organic compounds such as steroids, acids, amines, phenols, and alkenes have been assayed. 

In reality, decisions about public health are often made on the basis of politics rather than science. If this were not so, more resources would be committed to controlling food poisoning relating to micro-organisms and less to relatively minor health hazards such as pesticides and environmental contaminants. Political decision-making needs to balance the needs of public health against legitimate consumer expectations. 

Turner, B. Powell, S. Miller, N. Melvin, J. A Field Study of Fog and Dry Deposition as Sources of Inadvertent Pesticide Residues on Row Crops Report of the Environmental Hazard Assessment Program California Department of Food and Agriculture Sacramento, CA, November 1989. 

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