Pesticides are chemical mixtures (poisons) designed to kill living things. Pesticides used for lawns and landscapes include herbicides, insecticides and fungicides. While pesticides may be initially effective, pests will eventually develop resistance and then require even more toxic formulations to be developed and used.

Because most pesticides are broad-spectrum, they kill many non-target organisms, including beneficial insect species and beneficial soil microorganisms, which naturally outcompete pest populations to help maintain a healthy and balanced soil biology. Pesticides are also very persistent and move through the environment, contaminating the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat. They can also harm birds, aquatic organisms and both wild and domestic animals.

​

When Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring in 1962, she raised public awareness about the harmful effects of pesticide use on human health and the environment. Today, more than 60 years after she drew the world's attention to this threat, the use of pesticides has only increased. An impressive and growing body of peer-reviewed science links lawn pesticide exposures to human cancers, neurological and respiratory problems, endocrine and immune system dysfunction, reproductive harm and environmental illnesses, including multiple chemical sensitivity.