Die Schwarze Liste der Pestizide - Greenpeace

Greenpeace e.V. – Die Schwarze Liste der Pestizide
2. Summary
Greenpeace Germany - The Black List of Pesticides
The study compiles a comparative evaluation of the hazardousness to people and the environment
of active agents in pesticides used worldwide. All the pesticides currently in use legally worldwide
are in all probability among the 1134 pesticide agents investigated. Consumers in Germany can
ingest these pesticides as a result of the importing of food from all corners of the world.
Assessment of substances
The assessment incorporated fourteen toxicological, eco-toxicological and ecological aspects or
categories of effect. Data on substances from publicly available data banks from internationally
recognised institutions and scientists were used for each category. Depending on what was clearly
known about the harmful effects and/or their intensity from the data evaluated, up to five points
were given on the effect of the substances. The points were totalled for each active agent so that
the total reflected the relative danger to health and the environment compared to other substances.
The result is a "ranking" of the substances according to their harzardousness for people and the
environment.
The criteria used in evaluating substances
The factors used in the evaluation were acute toxicity, chronic toxicity, carcinogenic effect,
mutagenic (damaging to genes) effect, reproduction toxicity, immune toxicity, hormonal effect,
aquatic toxicity, bird toxicity, bee toxicity, earthworm toxicity, persistence (degradability in the environment)
and bioaccumulation (accumulation in the food chain).
Especially hazardous substances
Especially hazardous substances in pesticides were identified partly by being classified as the
highest in particular categories and partly through their total number of points. Any substance
which displayed at least one especially hazardous property, or in the points ranking came in the top
ten per cent of the substances assessed, came onto a "blacklist". Substances about which not
enough information is at present available for them to be evaluated have been put on a "yellow
list", and all other substances on a "grey list" (see below).
The "blacklist" of especially hazardous pesticides
The "blacklist" comprises of 327 substances, or 29 per cent of the 1134 substances looked at.
They also include 168 of the pesticides authorised in the EU. The following ten substances approved
in the EU have the highest proportion of very dangerous properties:
bifenthrin, cyfluthrin, lambda-cyhalothrin, difenacoum, fenbutatin oxide, chloropyrifos, deltamethrin,
fipronil, oxadiazon, cyhexatin.
The following ten substances, likewise permitted in the EU, have the highest total effect:
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