This infographic visualizes and explains potential adverse effects of chemical pesticides on the environment. If  instructions for pesticide use are not exactly followed, the risk for potential side effects increases.

Potential environmental effects of chemical pesticides include:

• Impairment of other plants and animals,
• Accumulation in the food chain,
• Pollution and damage to waters, aquatic plants, fish or other aquatic organisms,
• Pollution of drinking water and thus rising costs for drinking water treatment,
• Contamination of wastewater, the treatment is thus complicated and expensive,
• Accumulation in the soil, built into plants of the next growing season,
• Mutual reinforcement of the toxicity of various substances.

The infographic is licensed under a Creative Commons license CC BY-ND 4.0, which means that you may freely use it unchanged and mentioning the author. The infographic is part of a series of nine infographics on environmentally friendly plant protection, which were developed by the Ecologic Institute in the project Online Information Service: Environmentally Compatible Plant Protection.