Homeowners use nearly 1 billion pounds of pesticides every year, releasing millions of toxic chemicals into the atmosphere. Do you know how to protect yourself from these toxins?
What Are the Dangers of Lawn Chemicals?
Lawn care chemicals include:
- Pesticides
- Herbicides
- Organochlorines
- Pyrethroids
- Phenoxy and benzoic acid herbicides (MCPP and MCPA)
- Organophosphates
- Carbamates
Though lawn care chemicals improve your lawn by killing weeds and insects, they’re poisonous for humans and animals.
These toxic chemicals are absorbed through your skin and mouth and are harmful to your body. These chemicals typically don’t impact your health immediately, but they are dangerous if you use them repeatedly and often.
How Toxic Is Weed Killer?
Weed killer is a widely used herbicide that gets rid of pesky weeds—it also contains toxic chemicals. About 50% to 99% of chemicals in weed killers are harmful to people and animals.
Out of 16 commonly used pesticides:
- 38% can potentially cause cancer
- 69% have adverse reproductive effects
- 33% cause damage to your kidneys and liver
- 38% lead to birth defects
- 88% are generally irritating when used repeatedly
While weed killer improves the look of your lawn and garden, it’s dangerous to use, and you should consider using organic lawn care alternatives and proper safety measures.
Health Effects From Handling Hazardous Materials
When you get lawn care pesticide poisoning, you must seek medical attention immediately. The health effects from handling these hazardous materials can be deadly.
Possible symptoms and health effects of chemical poisoning include:
- Fatigue and dizziness
- Suicidal thoughts and depression
- Seizures
- Numbness and tingling of hands or feet
- Diarrhea
- Stroke
- Death
Even if you don’t have immediate symptoms of pesticide poisoning, you could develop long-term health issues like infertility, miscarriage, chemical sensitivity, immune suppression, and cancer.
Many lawn care products contain glyphosate as an active ingredient. This ingredient alone causes vomiting, burning in the mouth, eye irritation, and allergies. Alongside other chemicals, glyphosate can lead to death—and it’s one of the most common fertilizer ingredients.
Workplace Risks
If you work in the lawn and turf industry, you may be overexposed to pesticides and other harmful chemicals. When you’re constantly inhaling and touching pesticides, you’re exposing yourself to harmful chemicals repeatedly. Of course, if it’s your job, it’s difficult to avoid this exposure, but there are precautions you can take.
Always follow safety guidelines when handling chemicals. These might be provided by your employer, but OSHA also provides a thorough list of chemical handling safety tips.
Keep reading to learn more about safely working with lawn care chemicals.
Where Can I Get Help Preventing the Dangers of Lawn Chemicals?
Axiom Products creates safety equipment for all of your lawn care chemicals to prevent chemical poisoning. With nearly 20 years in the lawn care industry and high-quality products, we’re your go-to chemical handling supplier.
Our Jet Rinse Triple-Rinsing Nozzle is the perfect tool for safely discarding chemical containers. It’s EPA-approved and cuts cleaning time down by 50%. After just one minute of use, our Triple-Rinsing Nozzle removes 99% of chemical residue.
We also offer:
- Impact-resistant chemical handling goggles, with or without vents
- PVC and nitrile chemical handling gloves
- Chemical storage containers
- Law and turf chemical pouring containers that accurately measure chemicals to prevent overusing
Axiom Products protects you from the dangers of lawn chemicals so you can stay safe while maintaining your home’s landscape. With our help, you can avoid the hazardous effects of lawn care chemical handling.
