Dec 3 - No Pesticides Use Day

The international Pesticide Action Network launched December 3 as the Global “No Pesticides Use Day“ in 1998, to commemorate the world’s worst chemical disaster in 1984. That day in Bhopal (India) a pesticide factory exploded, releasing a toxic gas that caused more than 500,000 injured and 20,000 deaths in the years since. The global PAN has highlighted the tragedy of Bhopal as an example of a tragic instance of chemical pesticide contamination for which its victims continue to suffer to this day. Bhopal has been called the worst commercial industrial disaster in history—but not the last. Around the world the ongoing manufacture, distribution, and use of chemical pesticides continues to wreak devastating impacts on people and the environment. While acute cases of pesticide poisoning are a concern, the chronic long-term effects such as cancers; and endocrine disrupting effects are of increasing concern.

Every year on December 3, PAN AP collaborates with partners in many countries on events initiated to remind people of the hazardous effects of pesticides on human health and environment.