Pesticides and How They Affect You

Have you ever wondered how much those expensive chemicals and pesticides are helping or hindering you and your family? Year after year you trek to the store and purchase chemicals and pesticides that are supposed to help your lawn grow, kill weeds and eradicate the insects that invade your lawn and home. However are they doing more harm than good?

The majority of the population is vulnerable to the use of pesticides, including but not limited to pregnant women, infants, children, elderly, chronically ill, pets and wildlife. An estimated 78 million households in the United States use home and garden chemicals. What this means is that we are slowly poisoning ourselves and our loved ones that we are supposed to protect.

To make matters worse, children take in more pesticides than adults. Children are undoubtedly closer to the ground than we are and have still developing organs making them more vulnerable than the rest of the population. Infants and children are less likely/able to filter out the toxins than an adult resulting in children having worse responses to the chemicals and pesticides. If you treat your yard every year then you are just introducing more chemicals to your children every year and the chemicals only get stronger.

Studies have even shown an increase in side effects of pesticide use, such as miscarriages, immune system weakening, hyperactivity, behavioral disorders and motor dysfunction to name a few. Some studies have even suggested that pesticides can pass from mother to her child via umbilical cord while still in the womb and breast milk after birth.

Another important issue to remember is the affect pesticides have on our pets and wildlife. According to a Beyond Pesticides fact sheet, “Studies find that dogs exposed to herbicide-treated lawns and gardens can double their chance of developing canine lymphoma and may increase the risk of bladder cancer in certain breeds by four to seven times.”

Pesticide poisonings to pets or the environment may result from acute or chronic exposure. Furthermore, pesticides can impact pets and the environment through secondary exposure or through unforeseen effects to the animal or its habitat.

In the long run pesticides can and will do more damage than the insects and weeds that we are attempting to fight against. Protect your family and your home, call an STI dealer today and rid your life of harmful chemicals and pesticides.

Visit our application page for more information, browse our gallery for ideas and contact Synthetic Turf International to Experience A Greener World.