Title: Soil contamination - Wikipedia
Headings: Soil contamination
Soil contamination
Contents
Causes
Pesticides and herbicides
Agents of war
Health effects
Ecosystem effects
Cleanup options
By country
People's Republic of China
European Union
United Kingdom
Canada
India
See also
References
External links

Content: However, one group derived from trinitrotoluene (2:4 D and 2:4:5 T) have the impurity dioxin, which is very toxic and causes fatality even in low concentrations. Another herbicide is Paraquat. It is highly toxic but it rapidly degrades in soil due to the action of bacteria and does not kill soil fauna. Insecticides are used to rid farms of pests which damage crops. The insects damage not only standing crops but also stored ones and in the tropics it is reckoned that one third of the total production is lost during food storage. As with fungicides, the first insecticides used in the nineteenth century were inorganic e.g. Paris Green and other compounds of arsenic. Nicotine has also been used since the late eighteenth century. There are now two main groups of synthetic insecticides –
1. Organochlorines include DDT, Aldrin, Dieldrin and BHC. They are cheap to produce, potent and persistent.