MANUFACTURERS’ GRADING

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30482, 2 July 1964, Page 12

MANUFACTURERS’ GRADING

Of 40 insecticides graded according to degree of risk to users and toxicity by the New Zealand Agricultural Manufacturers’ Association, three are classed as “extremely hazardous and extremely poisonous” and 12 as “highly hazardous and poisonous”. These 15 insecticides, the association warns, should be applied only by operators using full protective clothing, including respirators, overalls, rubber gloves, protective footwear, and goggles.

Next are 18 “moderately hazardous and poisonous” pesticides (DDT and lindane among them); of these the manufacturers say that protective Clothing should be worn, but the use of respirators or goggles may not always be necessary unless these compounds are handled for long periods (as in commercial or aerial use). Five are ' rated as “slightly hazardous” (malathion is in this group); and finally two (derris and pyrethrum) are rated “non-hazardous for all practical purposes”. Some of the pesticides are “systemics,” so devised as to penetrate and pervade and make the plant itself poisonous to insects for a time. Many not so specifically devised are systemic to a degree.. The persistent hydrocarbons are difficult to remove by washing and are not destroyed by cooking temperatures.