Gateway on Pesticide Hazards and Safe Pest Management
How To Find Ingredients in Pesticide Products
Beyond Pesticides offers resources below to evaluate the health and ecological effects of specific chemical exposure from ACTIVE INGREDIENTS in pesticide products, as well as regulatory information and supporting scientific documents. Because various pesticide products can contain more than one active ingredient, it is important to READ the LABEL to determine chemical components.
With 192 different active ingredients and counting, it is essential to establish the connection between the use of these chemicals and their respective hazards.
View the step-by-step guide on how to search for the active ingredient(s) in pesticide products below:
- Go to U.S. EPA's Pesticide Product and Label System and enter the product name. The generic product name may vary.
- After searching, click on the chemical ingredients tab or the link for the most recent label to find Active Ingredients.
Chemical List Label List
If one selects the chemical ingredients tab, skip to Step 4 . If not, proceed to step number 3 - To find the active ingredient(s) on the label, search for the page in the document containing the date of registration. Usually, the active ingredients section occurs within the first few pages of the label document.
- Return to the Beyond Pesticides Gateway and search for the active ingredient name in the yellow box to the right or from the list below.
Bifenthrin
General Information
- Fact Sheet: Synthetic Pyrethroids.pdf
- Product Names:
- Chemical Class: Pyrethroid insecticide
- Uses: Agricultural and nonagricultural and residential sites including corn, cotton, soybeans, fruit, vegetables, herbs, nuts, ornamentals, Christmas trees, conifers, golf courses, lawns, rights of ways, wood treatment, food habdling sites.
- Alternatives: Organic agriculture, Organic Christmas trees
- Beyond Pesticides rating: Toxic
Health and Environmental Effects
- Cancer: Possible (8, 10)
- Endocrine Disruption: Yes (36)
- Reproductive Effects: Not documented
- Neurotoxicity: Yes (7)
- Kidney/Liver Damage: Not documented
- Sensitizer/ Irritant: Not documented
- Birth/Developmental: Yes (11)
- Detected in Groundwater: Not documented
- Potential Leacher: Not documented
- Toxic to Birds: Not documented
- Toxic to Fish/Aquatic Organisms: Yes (8)
- Toxic to Bees: Yes (8, 19)
Residential Uses as Found in the ManageSafe™ Database
- Bagworms
- Carpenter Bees
- Tree-boring Caterpillars
- Termites
- Ants
- Bed Bugs
- Chiggers
- Chinch Bugs
- Fleas
- Grubs
- Gypsy Moths
- Hemlock Woolly Adelgid
- Carpenter Ants
- Carpet Beetle
- Centipedes
- Spiders
- Ticks
- Wasps and Yellowjackets
- Clover
- Thrips
- Fire Ants
Additional Information
- Regulatory Status:
- Supporting information:
- Daily News Blog entries (Beyond Pesticides)
- Asthma, Children and Pesticides (Beyond Pesticides)
- Extoxnet Bifenthrin Factsheet (Extension Toxicology Network)
- PAN Pesticides Database: Bifentrin (Pesticide Action Network)
- Bifenthrin General Factsheet (NPIC)
- Studies:
- Temporal and spatial trends in sediment contaminants associated with toxicity in California watersheds. (Siegler K, Phillips BM, et al. 2015. Environ Pollut 206:1-6.)
- Predicted transport of pyrethroid insecticides from an urban landscape to surface water. (Jorgenson B, Fleishman E, et al.2013. Environ Toxicol Chem. 32(11):2469-77.)
- Early Life Exposure to Environmentally Relevant Levels of Endocrine Disruptors Drive Multigenerational and Transgenerational Epigenetic Changes in a Fish Model. Major, K.M., DeCourten, B.M., Li, J., Britton, M., Settles, M.L., Mehinto, A.C., Connon, R.E. and Brander, S.M., 2020. Frontiers in Marine Science, 7, p.471.
- Bifenthrin-induced neurotoxicity in rats: involvement of oxidative stress.. Syed F, Awasthi KK, Chandravanshi LP, et al 2017. Toxicol Res (Camb). 7(1):48-58.
- Organic farming reduces pesticide load in a bird of prey. Fuentes, E. et al. (2024) Organic farming reduces pesticide load in a bird of prey, Science of The Total Environment. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969724029255.
- Assessing the ecological impact of pesticides/herbicides on algal communities: A comprehensive review. Narayanan, N. et al. (2024) Assessing the ecological impact of pesticides/herbicides on algal communities: A comprehensive review, Aquatic Toxicology. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0166445X24000225?via%3Dihub.
- Advances and future prospects of pyrethroids: Toxicity and microbial degradation. Singh, S. et al. (2022) Advances and future prospects of pyrethroids: Toxicity and microbial degradation, Science of The Total Environment. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969722016540.