The word “pesticide” itself to great extend outlines the problems related to it. The root “cide” which comes from Latin “kill” directly expresses the purpose of these substances – killing, destroying living creatures, war with nature. The root “pest” now in many world languages means “vermin”, and implies that man divides all creatures into useful for him and harmful denying the latter the right to existence.

“Pesticides” is a wide notion that includes many chemical compounds that have suppressing effect on animate nature. The most widely spread and known are insecticides which kill insects, herbicides which destroy herbs, fungicides directed against fungi and rodenticides which are fatal for rodents. But there exist means against other groups of living creatures: acaricides (acaridae), ichthyocides (fish), nematocides (coelelminth).

Zdislaw Strycharz, councilor Of Lublin wojewoda, expert in pesticides maintenance.

Socialist planned economy introduced the principle of centralized distribution on all levels of activity. According to this principle, there were distributed, for example, seed grains, fertilizers and substances for plant protection in agriculture. Not all substances acquired for this purpose were used in good time and therefore they became stale, and their stores were increasing in storehouses.

Every year on December 3 International day of fighting with pesticides is marked – this is the day when in 1984 there was a catastrophe on pesticides plant in Bhopal (India) as a result of which about 200 people died.

Synthetic pesticides

The XX century gave the mankind many strict lessons and one of them is understanding the fact that not always a man acts wisely for his own benefit. Alongside with bloodshed wars, crazy arms race, human imprudence obviously revealed itself in large-scale usage of not enough tested substances which at some moment seemed convenient and useful. Such practice should be substituted with the principle of caution presumption which is one of the most popular modern ideas in the sphere of environmental law. According to it every new achievement of technologies should first of all go through strict check for safety for people and environment. In using pesticides, the necessity of this principle proved to be higher than in any other sphere.

In the United State there was published a report which admitted the existence of ‘Iraqi syndrome” – various ailments from which suffered veterans of the first war in Iraq.

Among about 700 thousand of American participants of the 1991 war in Iraq, every fourth suffered from disorders of immune system, problems with memory, chronic fatigue and many other symptoms.