Hello again! We are back with more of our water pollution blog posts! Today we will be talking about the detrimental effects of pesticides when it gets into a water body. Many of us would not have thought that pesticides would be one of the pollutants in a river, but more often than not, these pesticides have significant effects on the environment. If you are wondering how pollution from pesticides is linked to fast fashion, do check out our previous post for more information!!
The continuous use of pesticides to boost the yield of cotton for the ever-increasing production of clothes has definitely damaged the environment nearby. For cotton plantations, it is more common for farmers to use aldicarb, also known as Temik, as an insecticide to help with their yield (US EPA, n.d.). Temik, as seen in Figure 1, can enter water bodies from the plantations around through runoff and it can also leak into the groundwater and pollute it. The plants around the presence of aldicarb will have damaging effects but let me focus more on its effects on humans instead. Temik can cause humans to have “gastrointestinal disturbance, blurred vision, excessive salivation, dehydration, disorientation, seizures, unconsciousness, irregular heartbeat, and sometimes death” (US EPA, n.d.). Even though some of the effects might be less severe, with long exposure to this substance, it can become more damaging and lethal.
As mentioned before, the groundwater can also be polluted by Temik and it has caused great problems in the past. In 1979, Suffolk County, New York, the locals were not aware of Temik getting into their groundwater and only after realising the solubility of Temik, environmental scientists went to check the groundwater in New York (Wartenberg, 1988). Although Temik has been banned since 2010, they have made a comeback and now is named as AgLogic 15G Aldicarb Pesticide (Attaway, 2016). Although it has yet to show great damage to the environment, it is less effective than the old Temik in getting rid of pests. This shows that the old Temik was more effective but yet it caused so much environmental pollution. So much so that it can creep into our source of drinking water without our knowledge, and hence makes it more important to monitor water bodies for its levels of different pesticides.
There are also other pesticides such as Polychlorinated insecticides, which includes dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane better known as DDT, that can leak and pollute the water. For DDT, it is known for its persistence which allows it to be effective in killing pests. However, this persistent quality causes it to remain in the environment or an animal for a long time. Even after banning for a long time, DDT is still present in the environment and is still being accumulated in the environment (Hill, 2010).
The most significant effect on humans would be through the biomagnification of DDT through the food web within that habitat. As seen in Figure 2, the smaller fishes will have DDT accumulated as they are exposed to the polluted water. Bigger fishes will hunt the smaller fishes and these bigger fishes will, in a sense, double their DDT accumulation in their bodies. As other predators hunt for these bigger fishes, they will have even more DDT accumulated in their bodies. At the top of the food chain, humans will eventually consume those fishes and the biomagnification of the DDT will be even greater. DDT’s effect on human includes vomiting, tremors or shakiness, and seizures and with long term exposure, there can be chronic illnesses and could even lead to cancer (“Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) Factsheet CDC”, n.d.). Therefore, even with a little dose of DDT in the water, it can cause significant impact on the animals and humans that depend on the river for food and water.
After knowing how much damage pesticides can do to the environment, animals and humans, we can only ponder about the pesticides that are currently being washed away from cotton fields just to make the shirt that you are wearing now. This will continue to be a pressing problem as the fast fashion industry continues to grow. It is more important to seek alternatives to farm for cotton, boosting its yield while producing as little pollutants as possible.
References:
Attaway, A. (2016). Aldicarb Returns To Cotton Fields. Retrieved 4 September 2020, from https://www.cottonfarming.com/special-report/aldicarb-returns-to-cotton-fields/
Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) Factsheet CDC. Retrieved 4 September 2020, from https://www.cdc.gov/biomonitoring/DDT_FactSheet.html#:~:text=Human%20health%20effects%20from%20DDT,considered%20a%20possible%20human%20carcinogen.
Hill, M. (2010). Pesticides. In Understanding Environmental Pollution (pp. 456-482). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511840654.017
US EPA. Retrieved 4 September 2020, from https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyNET.exe/P100XQ7G.txt?ZyActionD=ZyDocument&Client=EPA&Index=1991%20Thru%201994&Docs=&Query=&Time=&EndTime=&SearchMethod=1&TocRestrict=n&Toc=&TocEntry=&QField=&QFieldYear=&QFieldMonth=&QFieldDay=&UseQField=&IntQFieldOp=0&ExtQFieldOp=0&XmlQuery=&File=D%3A%5CZYFILES%5CINDEX%20DATA%5C91THRU94%5CTXT%5C00000035%5CP100XQ7G.txt&User=ANONYMOUS&Password=anonymous&SortMethod=h%7C-&MaximumDocuments=1&FuzzyDegree=0&ImageQuality=r75g8/r75g8/x150y150g16/i425&Display=hpfr&DefSeekPage=x&SearchBack=ZyActionL&Back=ZyActionS&BackDesc=Results%20page&MaximumPages=1&ZyEntry=1&slide#
Volpe, G. (2012). 30 years later: Is Temik still a threat to East End? – The Suffolk Times. Retrieved 4 September 2020, from https://suffolktimes.timesreview.com/2012/03/30-years-later-is-temik-still-a-threat-to-east-end/
Wartenberg, D. (1988). Groundwater contamination by Temik Aldicarb pesticide: The first 8 months. Water Resources Research, 24(2), 185-194. doi:10.1029/WR024i002p00185
