Pesticides environmental problems from

This work is not an attempt to look at the past and future of the pesticide problem from the environmental point of view. After the general discussion of pesticides properties and use in the USSR (Chapter 1), we look successively at the unexpected consequences of pesticide use, for the natural environment, humans, and for agriculture itself.This work concludes with Lessons Learned from Pesticides, food for thought for policymakers, ecologists, and farmers. 

Most problems linked to the environmental consequences of wide pesticide use are due to the fact that almost all pesticides are xenobiotic (from the Greek xenos - foreign, and bios - life), i.e. they are chemical substances that are foreign to the natural environment. Materials from the USSR confirm all the concerns about pesticides dangerous effects on the natural environment. 

Often, many simultaneously occurring pollutants or contaminants determine an environmental problem. In industry, agriculture, and households, products are often mixtures of many compounds. The process of production and consumption is accompanied by emissions and consequently by contamination. One example is the use of toxaphene in the past, a very complex mixture of polychlorinated camphenes, as a pesticide. Technical toxaphene consists of more than 175 individual compounds. A second example is industrial and domestic emissions resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels. The emissions contain both a mixture of gases (SO2, NOx, CO2, etc.) and airborne particulate matter which itself contains a broad range of heavy metals and also polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). 

The environmental protection agencies of most countries have identified agriculture as the largest nonpoint source of surface water pollution. This is a major problem in each country. Pesticides and nitrates from fertilizers are detected in the groundwater in many agricultural regions. Soil erosion is a concern in many countries. Pest resistance to pesticides continues to grow, and the problem of pesticide residues in food has yet to be resolved. All nations are more competitive in international markets than a few years ago. 

In spite of the difficulties of using these primitive detectors, the capable professionals (from the Shell group at Kent, Goodwin et al., and the US FDA, Watts and Klein) successfully and accurately applied the method to the important environmental problem of pesticide residue analysis.. .. They lent veracity to the unprovable statements of that remarkable book by Rachael Carson. [1, 13]... 

The United Nations has estimated a daily per-person food requirement of approximately 2,400 calories, including 100 grams of protein. This translates to 243 million metric tons of wheat for every billion additional people in the world. More efficient development and use of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and so on will be required to increase food production. As this increase occurs, there will be the environmental problems traditionally associated with these chemicals. The runoff from farms and ranches, for ex-... 

Many environmental problems in water result from chemical species that are present in only trace quantities. Consequently, chemical analysis and detection have made major contributions to discovering and understanding these problems. Examples include the problems of bioaccumulation of certain chemicals, persistent organic pollutants, pesticide residues, and the health effects of arsenic and lead as well as other trace metals. 

The starting point in the textile supply chain is the raw material preparation. Textile fibres are obtained from two main sources natural (cellulose or animal) fibres or synthetic fibres. Natural cellulosic fibres include conventional and organic cottons, rayon, linen, hemp, jute, ramie and sisal. Cotton is used to produce 40% of world textile products (Saicheua et al., 2012). The major environmental concern in cellulosic fibre production, especially for cotton fibre, is the chemical fertilizers and pesticides used during cultivation. The second concern is the high level of water consumption (Dave and Aspegren, 2010 Muthu, 2014). Cotton is one of the most popular natural fibres used in the world. Three percent of the world s cultivated land is used for cotton production and 16% of the world s insecticides are used on this crop alone (Saicheua et al., 2012 Muthu, 2014). Moreover, the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, machinery and electricity causes some human health and environmental problems. Also cotton growing requires 7—29 tonnes of water per kg of raw cotton fibres (KaUiala and Nousiainen, 1999). Other types of cellulosic fibres are hemp and flax, which can be considered to be the most significant sustainable fibres in the non cotton natural fibre sector (Werf, 2004 Muthu, 2014). 

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