subject: Are you, your children, your pets, and the environment at risk because of the lawn chemicals you use? [print this page]
Are you, your children, your pets, and the environment at risk because of the lawn chemicals you use?
Synthetic lawn chemicals i.e. herbicides, pesticides, chemical fertilizers endanger human and animal health and damage the environment.
Decades of doing lawn care, the same way has produced many dangers to people, pets and the environment. It is extraordinary how many health issues have been associated with pesticides. Cancers, neurological problems, and birth defects are some of the most dramatic, but increased asthma attacks and skin disorders take a huge toll on the people affected. Pesticides are also increasingly suspected of being endocrine disrupters, a nasty category of chemicals that can cause a wide array of disorders from cancer to miscarriage to immune system problems.
Synthetic lawn chemicals i.e. herbicides, pesticides and chemical fertilizers endanger human and animal health and damage the environment.
A report by the National Academy of Sciences shows that the health of 1 in 7 adults and in 4 children are negatively impacted in some form by non-organic lawn chemicals.
Children and pets are especially at risk for negative health consequences due to their size, physiological development and proximity to the ground. Lawn care chemicals are easily absorbed into the body especially through the skin. Children crawling or playing on lawns and carpets, or with their toys, readily absorb pesticides through the skin and by swallowing. Children whose hands and skin are wet from saliva absorb 100% more pesticides than if their hands and skin were dry. Your pets can be poisoned by lawn chemicals, especially snail and other baits. Dogs are more likely to get a type of cancer called canine malignant lymphoma if their owners use synthetic lawn care chemicals.
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.
Numerous studies link lawn chemicals to cancers and other long-term diseases
Get the Facts about an Industrial Secret
Fact 1: Industries around the country are disposing of toxic waste by giving it to fertilizer manufacturers.
Fact 2: Some fertilizer has been found to contain dioxin, one of the most dangerous environmental chemicals ever identified, and heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and mercury.
Fact 3: Some plants such as lettuce, corn and potatoes uptake metals.
Fact 4: Common fertilizers used by families on gardens or by farmers on fields of edible crops may contain toxic metals in amounts greater than what the law defines as "hazardous waste."
Fact 5: The law does not require fertilizer manufacturers to label which fertilizers contain toxic metals or where the hazardous wastes were obtained.
Fact 6: Toxic metals known to have serious health effects are present in fertilizers, yet there is no assessment of the cumulative danger to children, animals and soils resulting from the persistent application of fertilizers containing hazardous waste.
Fact 7: Children are most susceptible to the toxic effects of most metals, especially lead, which has been the subject of intense government efforts to reduce lead exposure to children. Products like fertilizer are of great concern as children spend more time on or near the ground and are often exposed to ground level substances through hand-to-mouth behavior.
TESTED FERTILIZERS CONTAIN HARMFUL TOXIC METALS
California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG) Charitable Trust and Washington's Safe Food and Fertilizer tested 29 fertilizers from 12 states for 22 toxic metals in dangerous quantities (Aluminum (Al), Antimony (Sb), Arsenic (As), Barium (Ba), Beryllium (Be), Cadmium (Cd), Chromium (Cr), Cobalt (Co), Copper (Cu), Iron (Fe), Lead (Pb), Lead (Pb), Mercury (Hg), Nickel (Ni), Selenium (Se), Silver (Ag), Thallium (Tl), Thallium (Tl), Uranium (U), and Zinc (Zn). This report documents the results of these fertilizer samples, demonstrates that the problem of toxic fertilizers is widespread, and details concerns with proposed regulations for the practice. Add to this list the thousands of hazardous compounds and then think about yourself, your spouse, your children and your pets.
Labeling is inadequate. Because fertilizer labeling laws only require beneficial nutrients, like zinc or phosphate, to be listed, fertilizers are sold directly to the public and farmers without warnings or information that informs consumers about the presence and quantity of toxic metals. In addition, there is no indication on fertilizer labels as to whether or not the fertilizers we tested have been further treated to meet federal land disposal standards.
Each of these metals is suspected or known to be toxic to humans and the environment by the U.S. EPA. Nine metals, like arsenic and lead, are known or suspected to cause cancer and ten metals, like mercury, are linked to developmental effects. Three of the tested metals lead, cadmium and mercury are also persistent bioaccumulative toxins (PBTs). PBTs persist for long periods of time in the environment some indefinitely and they can accumulate in the tissues of humans and wildlife, increasing the long-term health risks at even low levels of exposure. These three metals cause cancer, birth defects, or reproductive problems.
Existing standards for toxic metals in fertilizers are inadequate for protecting our soils, crops, plants, water, air and health. All commercial fertilizers made from recycled materials, such as hazardous wastes, and produced for the public's use are subject to the federal Land Disposal Restrictions. The U.S. EPA's federal Land Disposal Restrictions, which are applied to zinc fertilizers that contain toxic waste, are intended to ensure that toxic substances are properly treated before the waste is disposed of in heavily regulated, lined landfills. Land Disposal Restriction standards are technology-based standards, which mean that they are designed to predict the ability of a hazardous waste to leach from these landfills.
Unfortunately, the recycling of hazardous wastes into fertilizer products does not always include the process of treatment or cleaning of hazardous waste, but rather dilution of the waste. Dilution involves adding substances to a waste to reduce the concentration of toxic substances that are present in the waste. Dilution does not reduce the toxicity of the hazardous constituents.
Several studies also link exposure to synthetic lawn chemicals to an increased risk of cancer and other health problems in pets.
According to Beyond Pesticides, Of 30 commonly used lawn chemicals, 23 (are linked with cancer or carcinogenicity, 13 are linked with birth defects, 21 with reproductive effects, 26 with liver or kidney damage, 15 with neurotoxicity, and 11 with disruption of the endocrine (hormonal) system. Of those same17 are detected in groundwater, 23 have the ability to leach into drinking water sources, 24 are toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms vital to our ecosystem, 11 are toxic to bees, and 16 are toxic to birds.
Almost daily reports of contaminated rivers, streams, lakes and water supplies are published. Canada and eleven US States have banned synthetic lawn care products.
Adverse Health Effects of Non-Organic Lawn Care Products Link
The Hazzards Are Real
For All Dangerous, Synthetic/Chemical Lawn Care Products, There Are Natural/Organic Products That Are Safe!
