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Recommendations
Federal
Government | State
Government | Towns | Stores | Individuals
Federal Government
Packaging
- Lawn-care pesticide products should be contained in packaging that
will neither tear nor rip.
- Lawn-care pesticide packaging should prevent pesticide vapors from
escaping so that odors cannot be detected.
- All consumer lawn-care pesticide packaging should be required to
be childproof, as are some other pesticide products under current
law.
Labeling
- Pesticide labels should be required to warn consumers of long-term
(chronic) health risks, such as carcinogenicity, reproductive effects,
and neurotoxicity. Currently, only acute health risks must be labeled.
- All warnings and instructions for safe use, storage, disposal and
emergency advice should be printed in type not less than 18 points
in size.
- Fifty percent of the front of the consumer lawn-care packaging
should be required to contain:
- pesticide or pesticides contained in the product;
- what the pesticide or pesticides are designed to target;
- precautions to prevent exposures;
- protective clothing to be worn when using the product or cleaning
up spills;
- emergency procedures for accidental exposures;
- storage instructions; and
- disposal instructions.
- Labels should warn pregnant women and women expecting to become
pregnant of the special hazards pesticides pose to unborn children.
- Pesticide product labels should identify all product ingredients,
including “inert” ingredients. Labels should also include
a summary of the acute and chronic toxicity of inert ingredients.
- Labels should include clear disposal instructions and should discourage
indoor storage of partially used and open containers.
Advertising Requirements and Additional Testing Needs for Pesticides
- Lawn-care pesticide manufacturing companies should be required
to state the long-term health risks to consumers whenever they advertise
their products.
- Lawn-care pesticides that are not licensed for use on food crops
should be required by EPA to be tested to determine their potential
chronic effects, including carcinogenicity, reproductive toxicity,
developmental neurotoxicity and hormonal and immune system effects.
State Government
- Lawn-care pesticides should not be sold indoors or near food. Stores
should be required to store pesticides outdoors in a covered storage
facility with nonpermeable floors without floor drains.
- State law should be amended so that local governments may regulate
lawncare pesticides more strictly than the state does. Local governments
should have the legal authority to create lawn-care pesticide regulations
tailored to their ecological and land use conditions. Given Connecticut’s
heavy reliance on shallow drinking water supplies, communities should
be concerned about intensive homeowner use of lawn-care pesticides.
- Establish a tax on lawn-care pesticide products. Currently the
costs of monitoring, regulating, and cleaning up pesticide contamination
are passed on to private individuals or local authorities. California
taxes provide roughly half of the total amount spent on pesticide-related
environmental protection in California (about $50 million annually).
- Disposal of pesticides should be regulated as hazardous waste.
Lawn-care pesticides are often discarded along with household waste.
All pesticide products should be disposed of in a manner that prevents
the release of pesticides to the environment, protects groundwater,
and minimizes human exposures.
- Collect lawn-care pesticide sales data and make the data publicly
available. Currently, no federal or state programs track the use
of pesticides, other than restricted-use pesticides. Information
on non-agricultural pesticide use, including applications to public
and private lands, is not available. Connecticut should develop a
database to track the amount of pesticides used on public and private
property, including pesticide applications to parks, golf courses,
cemeteries, rangeland, pastures, and along roadside and railroad
rights-of-way, as well as the amount of pesticides purchased by homeowners.
This information should be made available to the public. Several
other states collect and release pesticide use data.311 312 313
- Identify zones of highest water vulnerability to lawn-care pesticides.
Consideration should be given to areas with high water tables, floodplains,
proximity to water bodies and wetlands, soils, and relevant geological
formations when identifying vulnerable zones. Areas within one-half
mile of drinking water reservoirs should be restricted from lawn-care
pesticide uses.
- Develop a formal pesticide illness reporting system. Connecticut
is not listed on CDC’s list of State-Based Pesticide Poisoning
Surveillance Programs314 and was not included on GAO’s list
of states with formal pesticide reporting systems.315 Both the National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the National Center
for Environmental Health have identified steps that are prerequisites
to establishing effective state pesticide illness reporting systems,
such as passing laws requiring health care professionals to report
pesticide-related illness and injury conditions and improving the
training of health care professionals in pesticide incident handling.316
Connecticut should take these steps to improve the understanding
of pesticide poisonings in the state and establish a reporting system
for people exposed to harmful pesticides through either accidental
poisonings or accidental exposures.
- Establish a water-monitoring program for pesticides in groundwater.
Longterm statewide monitoring is necessary to evaluate trends in
water quality.
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Towns
- Eliminate the use of lawn-care pesticides on town property. Towns
should be especially careful to avoid use of lawn-care pesticides
on their parks and athletic fields where children play.
- Educate residents to reduce their use of lawn-care pesticides.
Encourage residents to avoid lawn-care pesticide use for cosmetic
reasons. This is especially important in towns relying on wells for
drinking water.
- Towns should demand “home-rule” so they have stricter
control over lawncare pesticides. Currently in Connecticut, towns
are not allowed to have more restrictive lawn-care pesticide regulations
than the state. Many towns have unique ecological and land use conditions
that demand local control for the greatest protection of vulnerable
water resources.
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Stores
- Lawn-care pesticides should only be sold in covered outside facilities.
These facilities should have non-permeable floors without floor drains
and should be physically separated from areas containing food and
other consumer products. Signs should be posted to warn consumers
of the dangers of pesticides, and the need to separate them from
other consumer products.
- Broken bags of lawn-care pesticides should be disposed of as hazardous
waste.
- Employees should be trained in proper handling of pesticide products,
including procedures to follow in the event of accidental spills.
- Large retail stores such as Walmart, Home Depot, and Lowe’s
should strongly encourage the federal government to require more
effective packaging to ensure protection of their customers and their
work force from dangerous pesticide exposures.
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Individuals
- Avoid the use of lawn-care pesticides in order to minimize health
and environmental risks. Obtain expert advice regarding non-chemical
solutions to your lawn and gardening problems. Consider pesticidefree
landscaping alternatives that make use of native plant species tolerant
of conditions in your area.
- Pregnant women should be especially careful to avoid lawn-care
pesticides. Each of the five most popular lawncare pesticides has
been associated with birth or reproductive effects.
- If pesticides are used, long-sleeved shirts, pants, gloves, and
shoes should be worn during application. The majority of pesticide
poisoning incidents occur after dermal (skin) and inhalation exposures.
Following application, children and pets should be kept away from
treated areas.
- Pesticide containers should be stored securely in a location that
is not accessible to children. Take unused and unwanted pesticides
to hazardous waste collection sites for disposal. These products
should never be put in the regular trash or down storm drains.
- If you or your neighbors routinely use lawn-care pesticides, and
your water is supplied by a residential well, have your water tested
for pesticides by a professional water chemist to assure its safety.
- Residents
should ask town officials to restrict the use of lawn-care pesticides
on town properties, including parks and school athletic fields where
children play.
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