Are Fossil Fuels Used in Insecticides?

How Insecticides Work

• Insecticides are designed to kill insects via contact with different types of toxins, all of which target what the insect eats, breathes or touches. Early insecticides were often natural substances, including sulfur, borax and plant-based toxins from tobacco, camphor and pyrethrum plants.

Chemical Insecticides

• Beginning in the 1940s, synthesized compounds that used chlorinated hydrocarbons and organic phosphates became widely available--DDT, chlordane, parathion and toxaphene are examples--and coal tar-based insecticides came into popular use as well.

Coal-Based Insecticides

• Coal tar, a byproduct from coal, is still used in many insecticides and restricted pesticides; distilled coal tar is the main ingredient in naphthalene, used in some insecticides and repellents. Creosote-based insecticides often include coal tar, coal tar pitch and coal tar pitch volatiles, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances.

Petroleum-Based Insecticides

• Many insecticides use petroleum or petroleum byproducts as a base to mix and preserve toxins, according to Christopher R. Geiger in an article for the Journal of Environmental Health. Oil-based liquid insecticides that use petroleum distillates are also used in household insecticide sprays and aerosols and in crop spraying.

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons

• Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), another insecticide ingredient, comes from coal, oil and oil tar deposits and is a byproduct of fossil fuel burning.

Alkylated Aromatic Petroleum Oil

• Alkylated aromatic petroleum oil, used in methyl carbamate and benzene sulfonate insecticides, is a byproduct of petroleum.