Benefits of Proper Disposal of Pesticides

After spraying the vegetables in your garden with insecticide, you look at the bottle and realize you have about one-eighth of the container left. Unsure of what to do, you may decide to pour the leftover insecticide down the sewer and toss the bottle in the trash.

What you may not know is that pouring these chemicals down the drain will have a tremendous impact on the environment, and that you are also about to violate the law. It is extremely important to dispose of pesticides in the proper manner. Here’s why:

• Pesticides that are disposed of in wastewater ultimately end up somewhere. It’s important that you dispose of them properly or there will be an environmental impact.
• Keep in mind that anything dumped down the sewer, septic system or into a stream, will cause harm to the wildlife that surrounds it. Many times, this leads to the death of fish, aquatic plants and even larger animals higher in the food chain. For example, if an animal’s prey is exposed to any type of pesticide, the larger predator that ingests that animal can become extremely ill or die just from eating the contaminated prey.
• If you own a farm and choose to dispose of the pesticides by simply dumping the remainder on the ground, you also run a risk of contaminating the aquifer from which you pump your water or the source of drinking water for a nearby community. This kind of dumping can also lead to runoff in local streams, rivers or a sewer, depending on where you live.

Find out where to properly dispose of pesticides and pesticide containers using Earth911.