Common Causes of Pesticide Incidents
There are many types and causes of pesticide incidents. EPA staff analyze pesticide incident reports involving people, pets, wildlife, plants, pollinators and the environment. Legal use may still result in unintended effects from pesticide exposures.
Every day, consumers can experience unintended effects from pesticide exposures if they:
- Do not follow label instructions.
- Use an outdoor product inside a house.
- Apply a pesticide more frequently or at a higher rate than directed to.
- Apply a pesticide product in windy conditions when directed not to.
- Do not wear recommended personal protective equipment (for example, rubber gloves, protective eyewear, long pants, long-sleeved shirts).
- Allow children or pets access to a pesticide by storing it in an unsecured place.
- Expose themselves accidently via a pesticide spill.
Professional applicators can experience unintended effects from pesticide exposures if they:
- Do not follow label instructions.
- Do not wear recommended personal protective equipment (for example, rubber gloves, protective eyewear, long pants, long-sleeved shirts).
- Bring clothing indoors after working in treated fields.
- Experience pesticide equipment malfunction.
- Expose themselves accidently via a pesticide spill.
- Experience exposure following application or from aerial treatment or spray drift.
Pets, domestic animals and wildlife (such as mammals, birds, fish, insects and plants) can experience unintended effects from exposure to pesticides if:
- Owners/applicators do not follow label directions.
- Owners/applicators apply the pesticide product more frequently or at a higher rate than allowed by the product label.
- Wildlife consume pesticide contaminated water or food.
- Agricultural pesticide runs off or drifts from the agricultural area into water or other wildlife habitat.
The environment (air, soil and water) can be contaminated by pesticide overuse, spills, leaking storage tanks, rainwater runoff from over-treated areas, spray drift, and improper disposal of pesticides, among other ways. Pesticides can enter ground and surface waters (streams, rivers) that people and wildlife use for drinking water and can also harm aquatic life (e.g., plants, fish, crabs, shellfish).