Argumentative Essay On Pesticides In The Us

Superior Essays
Pesticides kill 26 people a year, hospitalize 1,419, and send 20,116 to health clinics to be treated. Pesticides are the only toxic substances that we release intentionally into our environment to kill living things, this includes chemical substances to kill weeds (herbicides), insects (insecticides), fungus (fungicides), rodents (rodenticides) and many others. Farmers, landscapers, and commercial pesticide applicators apply about 1 billion pesticides a year to agricultural land, urban areas, and no crop land throughout the United States. The term pesticides cover a wide variety of chemicals such as herbicides, fungicides, rodenticides, insecticides, mematicides, molluscicides, bactericides, larvicides These pesticides can kill organisms such …show more content…
These new chemicals were very effective, cost efficient, and very highly popular. DDT was without a doubt the most popular pesticide due to its wide-spectrum activity against insect pests of agriculture and human health, but on December 31, 1972 the EPA had a press release stating that the pesticide DDT would no longer be legal for general use in the United States. 2, 4-D . Pesticides affect human health, waterways (streams, rivers, lakes) and wildlife. Scientists started to examine the problems that correlate with pesticide use when Rachel Carson published her book, Silent Spring 6 in 1962, Carson's book made an impact on the dangers of carelessly using pesticides. The most widely used pesticides in the United States are Atrazine and Metolachlor. They are used across the United States every single day, and they work very well. Today Americans use about one billion pounds of pesticides every year. The state of Florida uses about 12,000 different types of pesticides. Of the 12,000 that they utilize, 45 are described as “restricted use pesticides”. The problem with this is not just contained in the United States, about 5.6 billion pesticides and other chemical substances are used worldwide. With the widespread use of pesticide this also leads to a widespread risk for not only us but our environment as well. (Alavanja

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