By Elizabeth Danielson
Pesticide residues can be carried on your clothing even if you wear personal protective equipment (PPE) over your own work clothes. Therefore, it is important to properly clean your clothes after working with and around pesticides. Many pesticide labels provide limited instructions for cleaning work clothes. In situations where no instructions are provided, follow these guidelines for washing contaminated clothing.
- Wear gloves and long sleeves when handling pesticide-contaminated clothing to avoid skin exposure.
- Discard any clothing that has had concentrated pesticide spilled on it. Research confirms that traces of pesticide remain on heavily contaminated clothing even after washing.
- Wash work clothing at the end of each workday. Waiting more than 24 hours reduces the effectiveness of the wash cycle to remove residues.
- Do not wash pesticide-contaminated clothing with any other clothing. Pesticide residues can transfer from work clothing to household clothing during laundering.
