Drinking water limits: 0.5 μg/l (ppb) total pesticides (sum of all), individual pesticides 0.1 μg/l (i.e. 0.0001 mg/l (ppm))
- Without color, taste or odor
- Various chronic health problems
Removing pesticides from water
- Principle of adsorption, reverse osmosis
Pesticides are substances intended to protect plants and other products from pests. This includes a wide range of substances with a focus on various pests. From the point of view of water quality, the most important are agricultural sprays, which get flushed into surface waters and leake into underground waters. Therefore are pesticide most often in waters near intensively farmed areas.
All pesticides are to some extent poisons. However, thanks to the advancement in legislation and research, currently are allowed primarily those pesticides, that are less dangerous to humans and environment, and do not persist in the environment (and the doses, if they are not exceeded, are set to be as low as possible while maintaining effectiveness). The impact of pesticides on human health has not yet been reliably explored and may vary considerably depending on the particular pesticide or mixture.
Most commonly, adsorption on activated carbon is used to remove the pesticides, but reverse osmosis can also be used to reduce them.
