Pesticides & Biocides

There are several hundred inorganic and organic chemicals as well as biological agents which are classified as pesticides or biocides. Their use in a wide range of agricultural and non-agricultural environments, combined with tighter regulations, means that there is a greater need to monitor for personal and environmental exposure as part of risk assessment procedures.

A risk assessment should:

• identify the hazard;.
• assess the potential for personnel and environmental harm;
• identify what precautions are required;
• note actions required;
• review effectiveness.

Human exposure assessments are necessary in order to:

• register pesticides (environmental assessments also required);
• check effectiveness of exposure control procedures;.
• protect human health.

HSL - A Comprehensive Service
The Health and Safety Laboratory offers a high quality service tailored to meet your pesticide and biocide risk assessment, research or monitoring needs. We offer a range of services including:

• occupational hygiene;
• environmental monitoring;
• chemical and microbiological analysis;
• biological monitoring;
• fluorescent tracer studies;
• toxicity and efficacy assessment;
• computational modelling;
• dispersion prediction;
• project planning.

Occupational Hygiene
Assessing and controlling occupational exposure to pesticides and biocides presents a unique set of problems. Their range of uses is wide and application methods are varied. Consequently all routes of human exposure must be taken into account. In particular exposure may occur through dermal, inhalation or ingestion routes which should be considered when establishing the risk to health. We have an experienced team of Occupational Hygienists who are supported by extensive capabilities at HSL to provide:

• site surveys, including on-site sampling and assessment of exposure controls;
• interpretation of exposure assessment data;
• guidance on exposure control.

Analytical Services
HSL ranks as one of the top laboratories in Europe for the analysis of pesticides and biocides. Many organic, inorganic and biologically active ingredients and their metabolites can be determined using accredited methods. We offer a high quality analytical service for:

• occupational hygiene samples (Tenax tubes, filters, pads, gloves, etc);
• environmental samples (vegetation, soil, water, etc);
• formulations;
• biological samples (urine and blood).

We can provide a contract research and development service to develop new and improved analytical methods. We also provide a range of fluorescent and tracer methods for surveying skin and surface contamination including ultraviolet light methods and Portable X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry (PXRF).

Studies undertaken by HSL include:

• Operator and environmental exposure assessment during timber treatment operations.
• Operator exposure assessment during the spraying of glyphosate by all-terrain vehicles.
• Operator exposure assessment during sheep dipping operators.
• Human volunteer studies for toxicity assessment.
• Biocide efficacy studies against target micro-organisms.
• Operator exposure assessment during seed treatment operations.
• Dermal exposure to pesticides.
• Prediction of internal and external dispersion of biocides.

Quality Assurance
HSL considers the quality of service to be of utmost importance.

• We operate a quality management system certified by Lloyds as complying with the ISO 9001 standard.
• We have accredited methods for pesticides in vegetation and pesticides in occupational hygiene samples (UKAS accredited testing laboratory number 1147).
• We achieve a consistently high performance in the Food Analysis Performance Assessment Scheme (FAPAS) inter-laboratory quality assurance scheme.

Further Details
Contact our Business Development Unit by telephone (+44) 01298 218218, fax (+44) 01298 218822 or email hslinfo@hsl.gov.uk.

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