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The variety of lawn and garden brands and products is overwhelming, but Grow Smart, Grow Safe offers simple steps to find the least-hazardous options that match your needs.
Search the Grow Smart Grow Safe Tables:
- By topic. Choose a product category (weeds, bugs, etc.) from the drop-down list. Click "Go".
- By keyword. Use the search tool and type a few letters of a product name or active ingredient to see those results. Click "Go".
Understanding the hazard
The Grow Smart Grow Safe Tables show hazard ratings based on criteria reviewed by scientists and other experts.
Human toxicity hazards
Ratings are based on reviews of information about acute toxicity, carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, reproductive toxicity, developmental toxicity, and risk from short or long-term exposures in humans.
Pets & wildlife hazards
Ratings are based on reviews of information about the potential to cause toxicity from short or long-term exposures to pets or other wildlife as a direct result of an exposure from a registered use of a pesticide.
Aquatic Life Hazards
Ratings are based on reviews of information about the potential to cause toxicity from short or long-term exposures to fish or other aquatic organisms as a direct result of an exposure from a registered use of a pesticide.
Water Pollution
Ratings are based on the combined hazards of mobility and persistence of an active ingredient.
- Mobility: the potential for an active ingredient to move off the site of application with rain or irrigation water.
- Persistence: how long a pesticide chemical (or its metabolites) that remains active in the environment. These compounds sometimes accumulate in animal and plant tissues. Examples are DDT, chlordane, and dieldrin.
Additional information about bees, bioaccumulation, skin and eye irritation, etc. is not included in the Grow Smart, Grow Safe ratings but is available in Thurston County’s active ingredient reviews.
Ratings
Columns show hazard ratings that represent specific groups of concerns and assessment criteria:
There are many systems in use to help understand and categorize the risks and hazards of pesticides. The Grow Smart, Grow Safe hazard-rating system is based on the pesticide active ingredient review process developed and used by Thurston County Environmental Health Division.
Thurston County reviews pesticides for use by county departments and programs. The reviews are of active ingredients in the products, not of the products themselves. Grow Smart, Grow Safe uses these active ingredient reviews to rate pesticide products containing those active ingredients.
Information considered in Thurston County’s reviews includes but is not limited to: degradation products, mobility, persistence, biocaccumulation, acute toxicity, non-target toxicity, carcinogenicity, developmental and reproductive toxicity, mutagenicity, neurotoxicity, skin and eye irritation, data gaps, and applicator safety.
Grow Smart, Grow Safe uses Thurston County's rankings to place EPA-registered products the tables.
- Methods and products listed in green sections have the lowest hazard to health and the environment.
- Products containing more than one active ingredient are listed based on the ingredient with the highest identified hazard.
- Differences between close-ranking products may not be significant.
- Products with the highest identified hazards are listed further down on the tables.
Color code |
Ranking information |
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Cultural, physical, capture and mechanical methods of control.
These don’t require any chemical use and are the least hazardous control methods. |
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Low-toxicity pesticides, EPA exempt
The EPA has created a pesticide classification called: "Minimum Risk Pesticides." All of the products that meet the EPA requirements for minimum risk pass Thurston County's review criteria. The toxicity and environmental fate data that is normally required for pesticide ingredient registration is waived for these pesticides due to their perceived low risk.
These pesticide ingredients are considered low in hazard, however, they can still cause injury. Many of the minimum risk products can cause mild to severe skin and eye irritation - so follow all label directions. |
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EPA-registered pesticide products. Lowest hazard.
Low toxicity and environmental hazard. |
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EPA-registered products. Moderate/Conditional hazard.
May contain an ingredient that has a known environmental hazard (potential to move off the site of application and chemical persistence), or one for which the human risk assessment has identified a potential exposure with a moderate margin of safety from the EPA’s level of concern for toxicity). |
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EPA-registered products. Highest hazard.
May contain a highly toxic active ingredient, a known or possible human carcinogen, a chemical mutagen, or potential exposures from use of these products may have a very small margin of safety from the EPA's level of concern for toxicity. These chemicals may also have known chemical persistence with the likelihood to bioaccumulate. |
The EPA and pesticide registration
All pesticides sold in the United States must be registered with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). EPA examines the ingredients of a pesticide: the site or crop on which it is to be used; the amount, frequency and timing of its use; and storage and disposal practices. EPA's evaluation includes a review of adverse effects on humans, the environment, and non-target species. Once registered, EPA specifies that a pesticide may not legally be used unless the use is consistent with the approved directions for use on the pesticide's label or labeling. Despite the health and environmental reviews included in EPA's registration process, some independent studies have shown that using pesticides can still have adverse consequences for human health and the environment. For example, if pesticides are not used as directed by EPA, they can be applied at greater concentrations than specified and applied to kill species that they were not designed to control. This can lead to inadvertent exposures to applicators, their families, their communities, and their environment.
From 1United States Environmental Protection Agency. Registering Pesticides. Web. Feb 4, 2011.
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