After working with or around pesticides, it is important to properly clean your work clothes. Even if you wear personal protective equipment (PPE) over your own clothes, pesticide residues can be carried on your clothing. Before entering your home, remove your shoes and change out of your work clothes. Keep your work clothes separate from other laundry. Tossing your work clothes into the family laundry basket can transfer pesticide residue to other clothes and accidently to other family members. Many pesticide labels provide limited instructions for cleaning work clothes. In situations where no instructions are provided, follow these guidelines for washing contaminated clothing.
A downloadable publication, Laundering Pesticide-contaminated Work Clothes, provides more detailed information.
Links to this article are strongly encouraged, and this article may be republished without further permission if published as written and if credit is given to the author, Integrated Crop Management News, and Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. If this article is to be used in any other manner, permission from the author is required. This article was originally published on April 5, 2022. The information contained within may not be the most current and accurate depending on when it is accessed.
Elizabeth Danielson Extension Specialist
Betsy Danielson is an extension specialist for Iowa State University Extension and Outreach in the Pesticide Safety Education Program (PSEP).
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