Pesticides and the positive and negative aspects of their use.

Author: zoia Shedania
Keywords: pesticides, environment, contamination
Annotation:

Pesticides is a collective term that includes different classes of chemicals for control of pests in agriculture, health care, shipping, construction and others. Especially efficient is their use in health care and agriculture. Insect control programs have saved millions of lives by combatting diseases such as malaria, yellow fever and typhus. Without chemicals which control various pests like insects, weeds, plant diseases, worms and rodents, our food supply would decrease and prices would increase. Unfortunately, pesticides are poisons which are hazardous to the environment. Fishkills, reproductive failure in birds, and acute illnesses in people - usually as a result of the improper disposal of waste pesticides, technical faults during the use or careless storage conditions are the cause of their intensive scattering in the environment (atmosphere, surface and ground waters). Thus, careful management of pesticides in order to avoid environmental contamination is desired by both farmers and the general public. The analysis of information given in scientific literature reviels the inevitable necessity of pesticides use, but some caution is needed, and the new classes of pesticides must be introduced, which will degrade into less toxic substances by hydrolysis, microbiological or other processes.