Section 4: Why is labeling important?

Key Points

• Proper labeling minimizes harmful effects on health and the environment, supports compliance and enforcement efforts, and conserves federal and state resources.
• Improper labeling increases the risk of harmful effects on health and the environment, undermines compliance and enforcement efforts, and wastes federal and state resources.
• If a label is not enforceable, then users who misuse a product might not be prosecuted, and victims of a product's misuse might not be compensated.
• By reviewing labels according to the core principles, the label reviewer's actions positively affect state and federal resources, human and animal health, and the environment. 

Progress Check

• Why can pesticides pose some risk to humans, animals, or the environment?

  Because they are designed to kill or otherwise adversely affect living organisms.

• How do deficient labels waste state and federal resources?

  By incurring costs associated with interpreting and correcting label deficiencies.

• What are the consequences of unenforceable language?

  Users who misuse a product might not be prosecuted, and victims of a product's misuse might not be compensated.

• What is EPA's principal means of communicating to users and the public how to use pesticide products in a way that maximizes efficacy and reduces risk?

  Pesticide labeling.

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