BEHIND DOOR #3
Congratulations!
You have won The Unsustainable Convenience of Agrochemicals and Petroleum Products!
Nationwide, home gardens, parks, schools and fields of crops are maintained using agrochemicals, or agricultural chemicals. These chemicals have been invented to quite conveniently rid us of weeds or pests, and enhance crop yields. In most of the cases, agrochemicals refer to pesticides which include insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, rodenticides, molluscicides, neonicotinoids, and nematicides. Agrochemicals also includes most common fertilizers and soil conditioners.
Most agrochemicals are toxic and America's agriculture is 48 times more toxic than 25 years ago. When soil is contaminated with these substances, it can hurt the native environment. Many of these substances are just as toxic to plants, insects, birds, reptiles and other mammals as they are to humans. In addition, since soil is the “earth’s kidney,” contaminants can trickle through the soil and get to our water supply. Healthy food and fresh water are vital to our existence, and the existence of future generations!
Common contaminants in soils include pesticides, petroleum products, radon, asbestos, lead, chromated copper arsenate, and creosote. In urban areas, soil contamination is largely caused by human activities. Some examples are manufacturing, industrial dumping, land development, local waste disposal, and excessive pesticide or fertilizer use, as well as heavy car and truck traffic.
There are several ways humans can be exposed to soil contaminants. The most common are ingesting soil, breathing volatiles and dust, absorption through skin and/or eating food grown in contaminated soil.
Petroleum products have the greatest risk for human health when they are in drinking water. Because many petroleum hydrocarbons are highly mobile, if they are in soil they can be readily transported to water resources. Several petroleum hydrocarbons like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene can cause cancer.
Soils contaminated by petroleum hydrocarbons can affect soil health. And it can do so at much lower concentrations compared to the effects on human health. They can harm soil microorganisms, reducing their number and activity. Soil microbes help make nutrients available to plants. Reducing microbes' numbers or activity also affects plants. Some petroleum hydrocarbons can be taken up by plants and pose a risk to grazing livestock, wildlife, and plant-eating insects. At high levels of contamination, seeds cannot germinate. In some cases, even mature plants cannot grow anymore. Some petroleum products can be very thick and sticky. These types of petroleum products can clog the soil so that water and air is difficult to move to plant roots, resulting in drought-like symptoms.
Contaminants have negative effects on soil. They kill beneficial bacteria, increase nitrate levels, alter the pH, eradicate valuable soil organisms and increase toxicity and reduction in soil quality
Contaminants have negative effects on water. Water becomes unfit for consumption and can promote the growth of algae, leads to eutrophication (when a body of water becomes overly enriched with minerals and nutrients which induce excessive growth of algae and can deplete oxygen in the water body), which then effects aquatic animals due to water pollution.
Contaminants have negative effects on air. Residues and particles of these chemicals can lead to air pollution. Pesticides drift happens when air carries agrochemicals particles from one place to other. More amount of spray evaporation may happen due to low relative humidity and higher temperatures. Effect surrounding organisms’ health due to inhalation of polluted air.
Contaminants have negative effects on human health. It causes variety of health effects, from simple skin and eyes irritation. It also effects the nervous system, causes cancer and also reproductive problems. Can cause nerve damage, infertility, hormones disorders and neurotoxicity.
Contaminants have negative effects on insect, bird, reptile and mammal health.
In the last 50 years, one in four birds in North America has disappeared. Pesticide use and loss of habitat to farmland are some of the most significant contributors to the decline in bird populations. Although scientists have known for a long time that certain bird species were threatened by human activities, this study reveals that these issues apply to birds of nearly all species.
First commercialized in the 1990s, neonicotinoids, or neonics for short, are now the most widely used insecticides in the world. They’re used on over 140 crops, from apples and almonds to spinach and rice. Chemically similar to nicotine, they kill insects by attacking their nerve cells.
Neonics were pitched as an answer to pests’ increasing resistance to the reigning insecticides. But in an effort to more effectively kill pests, we created an explosion in the toxicity of agriculture not just for unwanted bugs but for the honeybees, ladybugs, beetles and the vast abundance of other insects that sustain life on Earth.
What we now know is that neonics are not only considerably more toxic to insects than other insecticides, they are far more persistent in the environment. While others break down within hours or days, neonics can remain in soils, plants and waterways for months to years, killing insects long after they’re applied and creating a compounding toxic burden.
An analysis of global insect populations found 40% of species face extinction, with near total insect loss possible by century’s end, driven in part by pesticides, with neonics a particular concern.
Not only has the EPA stalled scientific review of neonics, last year, the Fish and Wildlife Service reversed an Obama-era ban on use of these dangerous insecticides in wildlife refuges. Congress could change this. Democratic representative Earl Blumenauer’s Saving America’s Pollinators Act would ban neonicotinoids and other systemic, pollinator-toxic insecticides. The bill has 56 co-sponsors, but faces a major hurdle clearing the House agriculture committee given that the chairman representative, Collin Peterson, a Democrat from Minnesota, counts Bayer and the pesticide industry’s trade association, Croplife America, among his top contributors.
Beyond a ban, we need a concerted effort to transition US agriculture away from dependence on pesticides and toward ecological methods of pest control. We already know how to do this. Research shows that organic farms support up to 50% more pollinating species and help other beneficial insects flourish. And by eliminating neonics and some 900 other active pesticide ingredients, they protect human health, too.
More than five decades ago, scientists warned that the war we are waging against nature with toxic pesticides is inevitably a war against ourselves. That is as true today as it was then. For the sake of the birds and bees – and all of us – this war must end.
There are sites of special concern that we need to watch. It depends on the factory, but industrial and manufacturing sites can have leaks, overflow or stockpiles of waste. Landfills and junkyards are often filled with lead, arsenic and petroleum products where mixed contaminates can combine freely producing even more toxic issues. Highway corridors, parking lots and areas of heavy traffic are known for vehicle emissions and fuel leaks, petroleum and synthetics from tire wear and road salts. Farmlands are filled with residual 1910-1950 lead-based and modern pesticides, as well as herbicides, fertilizers, garbage and tires. Even common households can be sites for construction or demolition refuse, overuse of pesticides and herbicides, salt, paints, chemicals and fuels that can affect the soil.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
1. Know where your local, state and national candidates stand on environmental issues.
https://www.urbanaillinois.us/residents/refuse-recycling-sustainability
2. Call them and tell them what you support and don’t support. https://mondaybazaarblog.com/2017/09/06/how-to-call-your-senator/?fbclid=IwAR3du9wWMvKGqmASaXIRRlYpg8Rj6Gf1T5gAyCv-w_Xt25FO-1GcCPrSx1o
3. Embrace proper management of agricultural land and homesteads, and the practice of organic farming.
4. Plant trees and develop forests in new areas to help with erosion, increase soil fertility as well as combatting excessive pollution.
5. Properly dispose of waste and hazardous materials.
6. Strictly control the pollution of new soil and strengthen policies that manage pollution sources.
7. Transfer treatment and remediation costs to polluting companies. Hold them accountable!
8. Embrace technological research and development, develop advanced data collection.
9. Educate yourself on the 5 “R’s” – refuse, reduce, reuse, repurpose and recycle.
10. Get involved in your community! Show others that you care and that this is an important issue for you. Don’t just talk…DO!