Pesticides are approved in two distinct stages. Firstly, the active substance – the chemically active part of a manufactured pesticide product – is authorised. For the second stage, pesticide products containing that active substance (usually alongside many other ingredients known as ‘co-formulants’) are authorised. For example, the active substance glyphosate had to be approved before it could be allowed to be sold in the pesticide product ‘Roundup’. With that in mind, this is what the classifications in the table above mean:
- Banned – Many pesticide active substances and products are approved but then subsequently found to be negatively impacting human health or the environment once in use, leading to approval being rescinded. There are numerous examples of this happening, perhaps most famously with DDT.
- Never approved – Not all pesticide active substances are submitted for approval in every country. This can be for any number of reasons including; unsuitability for the specific conditions in that country such as landscape, crops or weather, marketing issues or because the pesticide will not meet the regulatory requirements for the administrative region, including the accepted level of threshold for harm.
- No products ever approved – Even when a pesticide active substance is approved for use, a country may choose not to approve any products that contain it due to concerns about its suitability for that particular area or the harms it causes.