These chemicals are also known to cause cancer, birth defects and developmental defects in children. Environment International Agency for Research on Cancer and Environmental Health Perspectives. The uncertainty about the effects of toxic waste-derived fertilizers on our health is a major problem. Health effects, especially long term responses, are difficult to trace back to the source of exposure. Even worse, we do not know which fertilizers are contaminated with toxic metals and chemicals.
Children are particularly at risk from the effects of toxic chemicals.
Pound for pound, children eat, drink and breathe more, and have more skin-area than adults, which means they have relatively greater exposures to chemicals in the environment. Under Proposition 65, products sold in California that contain these toxic substances must provide warnings to the consumer. However, fertilizer labeling laws do not require this warning on the label. One of the most dangerous chemicals known to science, dioxin, is found in industrial waste used in fertilizer. The EPA considers the acceptable daily dose of dioxin equivalent to a drop of dioxin in 600,000 railroad cars of water.