Question

What are the side effects of pesticides and insecticides?

Answer 1

Hint: Pesticides are chemicals or a biological agent such as a virus, bacterium, antimicrobial, or disinfectant that are meant for killing the pests and substances which are used to kill insects are called insecticides. They are harmful to animals as well as humans.

Complete answer:
Even though insecticides and pesticides have benefits there are side effects for both of them. Some of the side effects of insecticides are;

Insecticides tend to kill more than intended organisms and are risky to humans. Also, when insecticides get mixed with water sources through leaching, drift, or runoff, they harm aquatic wildlife and when birds drink such contaminated water or if they eat affected insects they might die. DDT is banned in the US as it affects the reproductive abilities of predatory birds. Another major side effect is when insects are repeatedly exposed to insecticides, they build up resistance until they reach a stage where they have little or no effect at all. Therefore, the resistance builds up quickly for the next generation offspring also.

Considering pesticides they also have side effects. The toxic chemicals in pesticides are designed to deliberately release into the environment. Even though each pesticide is meant to kill a certain pest it can reach a destination other than its target and it might affect the beneficial organisms also. In addition to that, they enter the air, water, sediments, and even end up in our food. It can cause short term and long term effects in humans like headaches and nausea to chronic impacts like cancer, reproductive harm. Pesticides also affect the general biodiversity in the soil. If there are no chemicals in the soil there is higher soil quality, and this allows for higher water retention, which is necessary for plants to grow.

Note: There are three different types of insecticides. They are
- Systemic insecticides
- Ingested insecticides.
- Contact insecticides.

Based on chemical nature they are divided into;
- Organic insecticides
- Synthetic insecticides
- Inorganic insecticides
- Miscellaneous compounds.