I found some toxic old insecticides
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- Опубликовано: 27 дек 2022
- A box of banned chemicals… the history is fascinating, and we take a look at some products that used to be everywhere, and discuss what are the modern replacements. Twitter: / explosions_fire
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The fun part is storing a bunch of different open containers in the same box so their vapors can comingle and make exciting new compounds.
the bad chemicals will cancel each other out and be safe
@@ExtractionsAndIre That’s pure Chud energy, Metokur would be proud!
O7
that's how you create the ultimate pesticide, just like how mixing cleaning products makes the ultimate cleaning agent. /S
@@ExtractionsAndIre two wrongs don't make a right, but three rights make a left
@@ExtractionsAndIre That's just asking to create accidental yellow chemistry!
I love how flies immediately landed on the DDT bottle.
The demeton-S-methyl too.
"This is potentially an extremely toxic substance"
Fly: Damn, that's gotta be the GOOOOOD shit. Lemme get some of that!
That's the reason it was outlawed, in the first place. The insects developed resistance to it. Then, they acquired a taste for it. Now it's like crystal meth for them!
It's like a person sitting on a shipping container packed with Sarin gas cans. "This is fine!"
Serves 'em right!
When you just aren't ok😔
The best part is that every time he pulls a new bottle out, it feels like watching a very confused wine connoisseur. "ah, yes, Carbaryl 2017. a personal favourite"
Nile red is much more reckless
@@mesiroy1234 Nilered would try and mix it with his urine to create a cherry flavor or something
@@mesiroy1234 who asked?
As a wine chemist that's such a weird mixing of my two trainings😂
@@ryandoyle3413 As in a wine taster who's also a chemist, or someone who works with the chemistry of wine?
My mom told a story of a guy in her hometown that worked on a orchard for decades, and he would get deathly sick when he tried to exercise to lose weight. The doctors figured out there was so much pesticide absorbed into his body fat that it would start to poison him when his liver tried to metabolize the fat.
I’m not very chemistry savvy nor am I a professor of human biology/chemistry sooooo if you know could you share how this poor guy was treated?
Or was he told to continue living like my fellow American? Aka stay fat bruh! It’s saving your life!
@@MarbRedFred I don't know, but he was effectively banned from exercise as it would put his health at risk.
Liposuction could have been a potential treatment to remove the pesticides, but you would need to take medication to liquefy the fat first before you can suck it out, and that would have make the pesticides go into the body.
@@MarbRedFred liposuction?
Emergency liposuction
So bioaccumulation isn't a problem as long as you never exercise, is what you're saying?
If you want to more easily remember what DDT's full name is, just use this handy limerick:
A mosquito was heard to complain:
"A chemist has poisoned my brain!"
The cause of his sorrow
was para-dichloro-
diphenyltrichloroethane
I will for sure remember this limerick in 43 years when I next need to know the full name of DDT. Bless
Mh yes, very helpful. Almost reminds me of a quarter of the name.
Yes this just rolls off the tongue
@@NewChiqueChloe You should also brush up if you're planning a trip to Nantucket.
sorrow and chloro don’t rhyme in my accent. do another one
Tom has a unique skill of acquiring old outlawed illegal chemicals from the past.
With the amount he talks about the 60s I’m convinced he has a Time Machine
If I had a time machine I wouldn’t let the bottles get so damn rusty!
@@ExtractionsAndIre if you do find a chemical disposal place see if you can check out what old chemicals they have maybe? Really loved this style of video actually
Also, is there any chemistry that could be done with these chems before tossing them?
If he had a time machine, he'd've been able to make fulminating platinum...
@@ExtractionsAndIre Couldn't your university chem dept. help with the disposal?, or swaps! Lol.
@@ExtractionsAndIre We've seen your way of "taking care" of your stuff, don't lie to us like that
Fun Fact: In the show King of the Hill, Dale Gribble states he uses "A mixture of Malathion and Lindane" for pest extermination.
"But when you reached for the Diazinon! Heh I gotta send that in to bugs & giggles."
⚠️ LIAR !
I have absolute proof that it was NOT Dale Gribbles.
It was, in fact….
“Rusty Shackleford” !!
🤫🤣
@@PowderMill my bad, they look so similar XD
@@deeznutz-bn9sl KOTH , Little House on the Prairie and Emergency! are the only 3 tv shows I permitted my daughter to watch when she was growing up. TV will never be decent, funny, educational and entertaining again. It’s sad.
I'd love to see you do a video about banned paint pigments.
Us old folks still remember lead paint (red, brown, ochre, black, white, purple, etc) dioxin purple. Cadmium red, orange, yellow. Chrome green and yellow. Cobalt blue. Antimony black, Vermillion red (Cinnabar). Kings Yellow (arsenic sulfide)
The list goes on and on.
The _MOST_ exciting thing I ever found in a dead man's basement was a wooden crate of dynamite. Badly deteriorated and shiny wet with ng that had leached out through the wrapping!
Good idea, I like that!
And wow that’s quite a find….
@@ExtractionsAndIre Scared the hell out of me.... 😳
Had he died in an accidental explosion?
@@thomasbaker6563 old man passed away.
His wife wanted "the clutter" cleaned out. 😲
A lot of old paints have been preserved for museums and paint makers, turns out sometimes you really need mummy brown to restore an old painting
This brings back the old conundrum "does expired poison get more or less toxic?"
Less toxic for the intended recipient, more toxic for the collaterals
yes
You nailed it. Expired poison is more or less toxic.
Yes
Thought you were gonna say, does your chewing gum lose its flavor... ?
Gotta love Tom talking about these compounds like a sommelier at a fine dining restaurant "This fine example of a DDT '64 brings a lovely toxicity to the table, it really opens up the myxomatosis on the palate. It pairs wonderfully with the roast rabbit and greens"
underrated comment lol
The use of the word 'vintage' wrapped it up nicely lol
There was even a Bordeaux.
The most humorous thing about this episode is that he's telling how damn deadly these things are and how brutally it could mess you up..... Flys just landing on these containers like "whatcha got there bud?!" "This smells familiar!"
*flIES
“They’ll just fucking die later.”
When my dad moved into our old house, he found two 25 pound bags of DDT based pesticide powder. He called the EPA to ask what to do and they didn't believe we had it
If you’re planning to take the stuff to poison control it might make an interesting video if they’d be willing to show the process of how they store/dispose of the material.
I was thinking about this!
100% agree!
Most of the organics will go through high temperature incineration, but the copper and lead arsenate will instead simply be taken to a hazardous waste landfill instead, as they can survive the incinerator. The others, as they are small volumes, will also easily go into the same hazardous waste landfill.
Compacted and covered over with ground fill at the end of the day in the active lined cell, left to finally decompose after a few hundred years, next to all the medical waste.
Yeah, nothing you can do to destroy toxic heavy metals, just got to stick them back in the ground and make sure they stay there.
@@SeanBZA jeee whizz, thats horrifying...
Neat. Makes me recall visiting a buddy in high school-- his dad was an entomologist prof at NCSU and had one of those old child killing latching refrigerators in the barn. He stored a huge amount of experimental pesticides in it, and the smell hit you before you were even in the room. Also never saw a single bug at the place. And I looked.
A lot of these were stored in an old style fridge as well! Must have been the style. The shed was pretty low on spiders come to think of it, and yeah the smell from the fridge was probably why
I guess if you were an entomologist, you either had to really love or really hate insects. Collecting or making fun new ways to eradicate them makes me think his father leaned towards the latter.
I prob took his class! I went to ncsu for plant and soil science and we went over all the insecticide modes of action and it was awesome! I’m also a certified arborist and am very skilled at eradicating xylem and pholem feeding bark beetles and leaf scaling insects!
Such a rewarding job to see a date palm looking like shit hit it with ima jet come back in 90 days and it’s coming back. I felt like a budget DR
I remember some fruit sprays my dad used had weird smells.
One friend of mine asked some years ago what would be a good pesticide, as small ants were becoming a problem in the apartment house he lived in. There had been an old lady who had taken care of them, but the old lady had died and the yellow round container she had used to dust the corridor near the entrance (where the bugs came in from) was nowhere to be found.
I recognized the description of the package, my granny had that stuff too. DDT, Finnish brand name "täystuho", translates to "complete destruction".
My friend had to settle for lesser chemicals available today to sort out his ant problem.
Instead of pesticides remember that all insects are attracted to food and water. Discipline in not leaving traces and sealing garbage is first defense.
Or just don't leave food out and clean your house.
diatomaceous earth kills ants easily. no need for poison.
@@stinkothestooleater4490 that's not always enough if you live in a place with high ant populations. You still need sometimes like ant&tick granules.
@@tripplefives1402 hard to do when the colonies are under your house unfortunately.
Fun Fact: Malathion is not just still used on crops, but also people! It's one of the two neurotoxic insecticides used in modern treatment of head lice (at least, it is in Aus). In case you're interested, the other one is Pyrethrin.
In America we also use Lindane! But just on people to get rid of lice, not on crops.
A literal container of DDT being labeled as "garden dust" is insane lmao
Just spraying it around your garden however you want will never hurt anything, when in doubt spray it twice. Haven't you seen the TV show where the guys who make and sell the thing get completely covered with the magic white dust and even get it blown straight into their faces while laughing and smiling? The thing is completely safe!
@@Kirillissimus They even sprayed it around a baby crib and it was fine.
Bro they sprayed that shit up and down our road back in the day I have a picture of my great uncle as a kid playing in the mist. Sure he got non Hodgkin's lymphoma but no one got malaria
@@Kirillissimus this is the heaviest sarcasm I've ever read
@@Pyxis10 That's right folks! Skip the step where it contaminates your children through mother's breast milk, and pump that good stuff right into the crib!
Before I was married with a kid, I was a Haz-Mat tech and medic.
Of all the stuff you've used and shown over the years, the organophosphates are the ones that scare me most. I've treated many poisonings from organophosphates (Canadian Prairies, every farm has hundreds of liters of the stuff). They have a nasty habit of getting more toxic through concentration and reaction while stored and are readily absorbed through any route. The most severe I've dealt with have been from people cleaning out old sheds and barns and spilling/inhaling these lovely things.
100% As a biologist, I find the organophosphates to be absolutely terrifying.
So, I grew up spraying malathion and paraquat for my grandpa without any mask or gloves, typically ending up with a headache while doing so. Grandpa ended up with a severe case of Parkinson's before he passed away. I'm 33 now and can't point out any obvious negative effects, but realistically, how concerned should I be for my future?
@@cheshirecynic3061 Our hazmat tech above may have more complete info than I do. Of course the most serious risks are from acute exposure, but my understanding is that long-term exposure has risks associated with the mutagenic properties of the chemicals. I would think you might want to have some periodic screenings for anything out of the ordinary. There's a good chance it won't cause you any problems, but if it does then the best defense is to identify them as early as possible. Regular checkups, and making sure your physician is aware of your history.
@@dmwalker24 I appreciate the feedback. I have some minor shakiness already from an OD when I was young and dumb, but it's definitely something that I keep an eye on in case it ever progresses. I really don't want to end up like my grandpa.
Reagan went allout war on Polio (believed to be spread by houseflies, at the time) and DDT sales went through the roof. Funnily enough, organophosphates can cause paralysis... Feedback loop, anyone?
When clearing out the folks house, I found a gallon of 2.4.5T. If I remember correctly, that stuff is 1/3 of agent orange. The local fire dept on the yearly "bring in your toxic waste for us to get rid of day" told me that if I took it away and never brought it back, they would forget I had it. Ended up burning it in a diesel engine to get rid of it.
As soon as I saw him pull out something he felt the need to add additional containment to I knew it was some real bad stuff.
As a toxicologist, I absolutely loved this video. Metal salts are so fun, but organophosphates are just so *chefs kiss*.
people say heroin eyes are super tiny, they havent seen organophosphate eyes.... remember, bayer invented sarin gas for u know who in 1930s
as a pharmacist these chemicals are terrifying and the reason i grow plants that produce atropine and have a well established method for producing atropine sulfate just in case i ever need it
As a biologist i just learned how organophosphates and carbamates work. They terrify and intrigue me at the same time.
You probably know this way more in depth, but here is how i learned it:
The compound gets into the insect somehow(?) and then it limits the an enzyme (acetylcholinesterase) that breaks down a compound in the nerve network, which disassemble a nerve firing substrate (acetylcholine), resulting in total cramp and then death.
i can say from experience that copper sulfate hydrate tastes TERRIBLE. It forms naturally as a mineral in some ore bodies.
@@mathiasmajslott9363 or the real ending from into the wild
The DDT stuff effected egg shells of birds and made them weak. Lowered their nesting number way down. I think a book called Silent Spring or something like that helped to convince people to move away from a few detrimental chemicals
that book also got the environmental movement started
DDT was great!
We traded some birds with about 1 million human deaths / year from malaria....
I'm pretty sure that book was proven to be bullshit eventually. But the damage was already done. Millions died but white liberals got to feel good till the next thing
@@DynamicSeq pretty sure the total environmental collapse from birds being out of the food chain would kill a LOT more people than malaria.
You could ask China and Mao about that.
DDT weakened the eggs of certain species of birds in the United States such as the Bald eagle. The shell would crack just from the parents trying to keep the nest warm. When DDT was outlawed, the American Bald eagles population bounced back and was able to be removed from the endangered species list which is quite remarkable.
Those giddy, yet uneasy, laughs after talking about the chemicals are great. He's so into it and loves talking about this stuff but...heheh it'll kill ya dead.
13:04 Story time! I used to work for a company that occasionally distributed an injectable form of demeton-s-methyl (correction: it was oxydemeton-methyl, which I believe is similarly nerve-gas-y.) (Think of a hypodermic needle, but for trees.) The box was absolutely plastered with scary red warning stickers, and when the injectors had been used, there were very, very strict orders to immediately put them back in the original box, put that box in two or three plastic bags, and send the bagged boxes back to the manufacturer for proper disposal.
Which is about as exciting as the fertilizer world gets.
Edit: A client of that company occasionally applied pesticides (they did tree and plant maintenance). They were cleaning out their large-scale pesticide shed, and discovered, much to their horror, a 55-gallon (208-liter) drum of some sort of mercury-based pesticide, which caused them endless sorrow. I wish I could remember *which* pesticide.
Second Edit: My favorite curiosity about modern, safer insecticides is that they're still absolutely horrific, war-crime level nerve gas--to insects. Imidacloprid & co. might as well be Sarin or VX if you're a bug, but as long as you don't use it as suntan lotion, it's relatively harmless to humans. Shame about the bees, though.
no fleas on me thanks to DDT
@@johnsmith-sp6yl An excellent profile picture!
Perhaps your colleague's mercury-based compound was a seed treatment, such as methylmercury? See also the 1971 Iraq poison grain disaster, and the 1969 Huckleby mercury poisoning cases in New Mexico.
I had a prof back in college who had a large sack of DDT in the shed that he half-jokingly referred to as his "backup" in case the bugs got out of control in the greenhouse. Same guy used a handsaw to cut asbestos boards for the greenhouse benches, using little more than a handkerchief for respiratory protection. He died in '21 at the age of 85, quite a character.
Many years ago, I had a buddy call me up because he found a bottle of heptachlor in the shed of the home he rented! He dutifully took it to a hazardous waste disposal site, in part from my recommendation.
But did someone get a needle stick injury despite all those scary labels and containment measures?
Phenylmercury acetate?
Send them to ThatChemist for a taste tier list.
Lead tastes sweet right? That sounds like a ‘winner’
whenever one of your old vids gets recommended to me after i finish something i watched on youtube i go back & watch them again. congratulations for the position of being my Emotional Support Australian
Human: Here I have all kinds of banned insecticides.
Insects: Interesting, let us look.
“They’ll just fucking die later.”
00:00 Intro: _A man of special interests_
00:46 Overview
01:18 **ORGANOCHLORIDES:** DDT
05:18 Dieldrin
06:23 Pentachlorophenol
07:00 Chlordane
07:45 **METAL SALTS**
08:01 Copper sulfate
08:50 Lead arsenate
10:59 **ORGANOPHOSPHATES**
11:27 Malathion
11:46 _biOLoGy side point:_ Tom = Ant??
12:42 Parathion
13:02 Demeton-S-methyl
13:48 **CARBAMATES:** Carbaryl
14:09 _we have different chemicals now_
14:30 **MODERN PESTICIDES**
14:37 Carbaryl (2016)
14:46 Pyrethoids: Permethrin, Deltamethrin
15:26 Neonicotinoids: Imidacloprid
15:47 _saving the elm tree w/ neonicotinoids_
17:13 **CONCLUSION**
Thank you so much omg
My Dad has a canister on one of shelves that says "ACME Arsenate of Lead" and it is very colorful
Maybe at least put it in a secondary container so it doesn’t leak arsenic and lead all over the place!
@@ExtractionsAndIre I will definitely do that until we get rid of what's inside, the last time I saw it a couple of years ago the container was in very good condition.
Not to be used against a roadrunner infestation.
Interesting fact about Most of the pesticides is that, As my self being a CBRN Specialist and working with different tools and learning about these chemicals, These actually set off our tools for G Nerve agents. Meaning if you Got enough of these pesticides together, You could successfully create a very deadly liquid.
I know that one of the big topics i was taught on DDT was that they had a massive negative impact on eagles. When you spray DDT that stuff travels up the food chain all the way to eagles, and when eagles tried to lay eggs the eggshells would actually be too thin and break so there were less babies hatching. I think this was a time when eagles were also endangered in the US, but as of now with conservation efforts i think alot of them are least concern! :)
All raptors really. Since they eat birds that eat bugs, bioaccumulation works its way up the food chain.
Thin shells were a big problem for hawks and falcons too back in the 1970's.
I'm pretty sure that ospreys and bald eagles had big problems with PCB's it the fish they ate back then too.
@@jimurrata6785 I'm happy to report from Kansas that the ban on DDT has definitely helped the raptor population recover. Hawks are plentiful, and bald eagles are not uncommon. I spent 1998-2013 living a couple miles outside of town, and there was a bald eagle that liked to sit in the big tree that overlooked the pond across the road. The local hawks seemed to largely avoid the eagle, preferring to hunt mostly in my back pasture and around my smaller pond. We also had cranes show up on occasion - they're fun to watch as they wade around in the water, such graceful but awkward-looking birds.
Yep... the ban of DDT only kills about a million people a year... Go eagles
@@DynamicSeq Yeah, no. People die from *too much* DDT, not a lack of it. Get your junk science outta here and go take your meds.
Trump should've just put eagles on his hats, if that's the only way to get through to people
"Flies are gonna fucking die later." I love it when you speak Australian.
for some reason i really like it when Tom is strolling around civilian infrastructure objects such as yards and tractors in his white lab coat with safety glasses and a microphone and is talking chemistry
yess the copper sulfate one is still used in Italy. My grandpa used it a lot to protect the vineyard, now I prefer other alternatives. We call it "verderame", which roughly translates to "copper green"
I found a bunch of 1970s-80s pesticides dumped in an alley. They were scattered amongst lots of other rubbish but I took the time to pick them all out and take them home as I knew in best case scenario the bottles would either get smashed from lying around, from some eventual clearup or in the back of s rubbish compactor. I remember there was DDT, Malathion and others.
Well done dude, honestly. Wish more people were as thoughtful
I worked at a farm supply when I was a teenager and looking back now it's kinda fucking insane how much poison I was around on a daily basis- the "chemical room" was the only part of the warehouse that was warm in the winter and I'd just hang out in there amidst thousands of gallons/kilos of fungi/herbi/pesticides. Ripped bags (and resulting clouds) of mystery powders were pretty common.
Also, they had literal tons of Ammonium Nitrate- they would have never noticed a few pounds go missing...
Ah well...
How's the cancer?
@@spammerscammer smoking as I read this, so I guess it's a work in progress?
That last part... yikes 😬
@@waynejohnson1786 back in my grandpa's day ANFO was used for getting rid of stumps and boulders in the fields and you could buy sticks of dynamite at the hardware store- ah the good old days
@@gatergates8813
And #8 blasting caps. Those were the good days! Today it's ammoniumnitrateforsale. U know what
Can you try to get a tour of the poison neutralization processes? It would be fascinating to learn about those careers and what the centers do!
That would be cool! I wonder if I could line something like that up
@@ExtractionsAndIreI think the AFP probably has enough of a file on you by now to know that your not going to take anything exotic or experimental home with you 😅
I work in household hazardous waste disposal, so I can tell you a few things. For stuff like this, we sort it out from the less harmful pesticides. From there, we bulk it into a large tote under a fume hood and ship it off to an incinerator to be destroyed. Since there is pretty much no way to render these chemicals non-toxic incineration is the only viable solution.
@@krisgibbon2199 yup they get mixed into a solvent base and sprayed into an ultra high temp flame incinerator to burn them to basic raw materials then particle matter is scrubbed
@@Refertech101 ANd where does that 'particle matter' go? Surely it's not all nice and 'Carbony' ready to be dusted on your bloody strawberries?
A good friend of mine helped clean out an old garage a few years back that was unknowingly contaminated with old pesticide. He has been horribly ill and wasting away for the past 4 years. Not expected to live mush longer as his seizures are getting more frequent. Just from helping out to clean an old garage
Gotta love the irony of the flies landing on the insecticide bottles as you talk about how deadly they are.
I love the irony of being all kinds of bothered with insects, while literally handling various insecticides ...
Notice how midway through the video the insects were all gone?
I can feel how intensely bright it is from here mate, hope this fire season is kind to us all.
Has been pretty wet this year, so should be okay… but always makes me think people will get complacent! So always a threat I guess
What in tarnation?! You got a whole season of fire?
I'm all the way from Argentina and we're also feeling the summer sun. +1 for getting drunk on the warm Christmas night
@@BubbaButt7 California does too
@@BubbaButt7 Welcome to Australia. Where the dog in the burning house, claiming 'this is fine', isn't a meme, it's just that part of year the rest of the world calls 'summer' ;)
I clearly remember my grandfather in the 1970s mixing white lead and red lead into a paste and then using that to coat his runner bean seeds before planting. The thought of doing something like this today is beyond belief
Did you eat the runner beans?
@@tungsten2009 yes. That could explain a few things 😂
@@peterbriggs3408 What's the difference between white and red lead paste, besides resulting in a pink mixture.
@@tungsten2009 Don't know really. I think one is lead oxide and the other lead carbonate, but why he used both I don't know. This was about 45 years ago.
@@peterbriggs3408 Twice the poison?
Fun fact, Malathion was widely used in anti-lice shampoos here in France until like 3 years ago. I remember putting it on my head quite often as a kid for lices after public pool, school lice infestation. I was aware of its toxicity quite recently though but you don't have much effective anti-lice products now apart from bad anti-foaming agents like dimethicone which (without much efficacy) apparently clog the respiration pore of the louse
Tea-tree extract.
This reminds me of my uncle explaining all the bottles of booze in his bar, but somehow less safe.
Technically ethanol is a poison, too.
@@gingermcgingin4106 but it's a fun poison:)
Hey, at least you didn't find a old dry/rusted bottle of picric acid! Had the pleasure of finding one during stocktake and having to call the bomb squad.
I was " gifted " several large containers of TNP , courtesy of a high school chem teacher , who received orders to get rid of certain " frisky " compounds in the labs .
His solution was to have a couple volunteers carry several large cardboard boxes of these politically incorrect substances out to the dumpster .
They never made it into the dumpster , but , did make it to my lab .
Fortunately the picric acid was quite wet and the scariest things were old bottles of assorted ethers and an rather suspect looking bottle of nitric acid .
@@kaboom4679 Always nice to see 'the funtime powder' or some nice crystals when pulling out ancient ether bottles.
My school found one of those back in the early nineties, was a big deal with the bomb squad called out and everything. Who then took it to the local tip and waited until a bird flew past before detonating it. Wish I'd gotten a copy of that video!
When I cleaned out my grandfather's house I came across 5 metal gallon cans of Technical Chlordane concentrate (mix 5 to 1) from when he treated his house for termites and a box of Asbestos cement for use in chimneys. In the medicine cabinet a bottle of Paregoric he had bought years prior from when he had gotten a bad burn on his leg. Fun stuff.
Cool story. Bro. Got anymore?
@@janeblogs324 Technical Chlordane concentrate or Asbestos cement or Paregoric? Two of them will kill you and the other is a schedule 1 so I’m not saying on either account. Stories of more f’ed up stuff I’ve run into over the years? I’m 60, spent 22 years in the military, lived in 5 different countries, retired and living in a 160 year old farm house and out buildings on the property I grew up on. So yeah I’ve got plenty. I just don’t share them with trolling internet arse hats begging for attention to give their life meaning. So there’s that…
Nice. I have been working in in agriculture research as an entomologist for many years now. Boxes like this (sometimes whole rooms) are very familiar to me, and I can imagine the "weird smell" you described. A bit like chalky candy cigarettes, esters, and some kind of bad chemical smell.
Some of those are pretty hot pesticides. You touched on a couple important concepts like persistent chemicals, and the ratio of toxicity for insects and toxicity for mammals.
Insects were also exhibiting resistance to DDT by the time it was banned-farmers needed to use more and more of it.
I did some toxicology and analytical chemistry with more modern pesticides. Handling "research grade" active ingredients is freaking scary.
It would be interesting seeing a video on how you go about safely dispossing of these chemicals through the correct means and the chemistry behind the disposal.
You chuck 'em in a 55 gal drum and bury it in a cave or ocean... Or incinerate it, ship it to a third world country, or declare it safe to dispose of in landfills.
Whatever's cheapest is the safest way, according to governments
Drink them
The super high temp incinerators supposedly destroy all NOx
Put them back in the box in the shed, they're someone else's problem.
@@janeblogs324 But then they go in the Atmophere right?
It's amazing what you can find in a great aunt's house. And the "I'll remove these for safe disposal!" gets you brownie points AS WELL as the organic chemistry finds.
It's a win all 'round! 😆
We were cleaning out the old garage when we were remodeling a house from the 50s and we found a very large sealed bottle of ddt (and some of the other more dangerous options) in a storage cabinet in the back, and I think they just got relocated because we didn't know how to dispose of them at the time
I was going through the contents on a shelf in my parents basement, i found a box of DDT powder, 4 bottles of Malathion and various other "insecticides", that were, at one time, readily available at Hardware Stores. Funny thing was the DDT Box was labeled "ACME Chemical Division", Reminded me of the Coyote/Roadrunner cartoon.
There is a limit to how much people can adapt. Your bit at the end really hits home.
been in the bush all my life on and off ( there are definitely less bugs and birds in the sky )
@@willam1992 Yet somehow the second I plant any sort of food plant every bird and insect in the town rock up with all their mates.
@@ItsBrendo its more to do with biodiversity. Previously many species wouldve eaten your garden. Not there are just a few 😂
@@willam1992 Good. Bugs and birds are hogging the biomass that could be better utilized for humans.
@@dickard8275 Biodiversity should be reduced to nothing.
Fun Fact: Copper Sulfate is still allowed for use as an insecticide on certified organic crops in the US. It has a specific carve out in the USDA's National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances.
But also I may need an Ex&F lab coat. You got a merch store going?
It's funny how organic and Non GMO crops need a fuckload of pesticides. And by funny I mean gross.
It's obfuscated knowledge now because they don't want people emulating the behavior, but certain pesticides were banned in California and subsequently the rest of the US when a group of people making that demand bred and threatened to release invasive insects that threatened important crops. The US actually owes some of it's pesticide policy to an entirely successful act of terrorism.
@@Suiseisexy Whoa! That was so interesting to look into! The group who released the insects (Mediterranean fruit flies) called themselves The Breeders. There's a wiki page for Entomological Warfare that has a section about them!
It mentions that an effective way for a bad actor to cause a biological terrorism attack would be through attaching the agent to insects and using their spread.
@@chucklebutt4470 Lmao, great page, I love the bit about us trying to get caterpillars to eat up all the cocaine plants in South America to win the war on drugs, classic US government.
Likewise in the EU. It more than meets the health criteria to be banned, but organic farming lobbyists keep it from being axed.
I like the clip where that nun is re-inflating that child with DDT , and the hexa-chloro cyclo hexane takes me back to doing reaction schemes in school .
Ironic that you were being buzzed by flies when you took out the DDT .
I'm a toxin collector and I've been drooling over your finds like a freak (not only the chemical content of the boxes, but also the historical value of these old packaging).
Malathion smells like garlic and if you manage to eat 20g you will die in terrible agony. the effects of poisoning are impressive, besides difficulty breathing, there is vomiting, cramps, diarrhea, paralysis, convulsions, watery eyes, blurred vision, salivation, sweating, headaches, dizziness, loss of consciousness... yes, malathion is especially fun.
Oh my, what a nice video.
So what you're saying is you need to be put on a watch list.
@@Brisco_County_Jr I probably am on one.
Women do tend to use poison when they want to dispose of someone, so you're not breaking the stereotype, lol. I'd love to see your collection. I got rid of almost all my toxic chemicals when my son started crawling.
@@chemistryofquestionablequa6252 😂
And I wish I could show my collection to someone interested one day. It's one of my weirder ones, so I rarely brag about it.
Good thing you didn't risk it and got rid of the danger. I don't have small children at home but I keep my toxins in a armored safe.
@@CzarownicaMarta make a video of it, I'm sure people would like to see it.
When I was a little boy in the 1980s, if we went on a long drive, the windshield would get covered in bugs and my dad would have to clean it regularly. Nowadays, a bug hitting the windshield is a very rare occurrence. I only clean it once or twice a year, because the rain and the wipers can easily keep up. Terrifying, really, and quite amazing that we still have so many insect eating birds.
Likely from improvements in aerodynamics of the vehicles too.
@@Jmoneysmoothboy driving in your videogames don't count.
@@Jmoneysmoothboy you said there is no decline in insects and I will again say perhaps its a problem with your perspective not indicative of the broader reality outside your gaming console. If this triggers you then be triggered.
@John Spencer lol. Sydney has expanded so far west now that we get barely any flies. Screw the bush, it's yucky out there.
Good. All non-human life should be exterminated or enslaved to our purposes.
Can you ask the poison control to do a video with them on destruction of the chemicals??
@Karl with a K Jesus, you’d think they’d do it for free to stop stuff like that
Hell yeah E&I poison centre collab
@@robogecko4067 sadly they grape you hard, I don't complain just means I get Mercury free, at least when given to me it is stored carefully and securely! but so much hazardous and toxic chems get dumped int he environment due to the cost of disposal to home users and such.
@@Refertech101
Twice a year where I live, we can take everything horrible to the local fire Department for disposal no charge.
@@dragonhealer7588 You don't need to ask permission to drop stuff off at the fire department or poison control, you just fucking do it, and leave. Don't have visible tags on your shit. Leave a note that says chemicals for safe disposal. Guess what they do, fucking dispose of them.
Bordeaux mixture is widely used today in Vineyards all over the world, for fungus control. It's not super effective and it can burn the grapevines but used correctly it's pretty safe and allows us to use lesser amounts of more toxic/exotic fungicides. (I grow grapes and use it myself!)
Boracare won’t work?
Thanks for the amazing and quite different content, mate! I always enjoy when you upload new stuff as you haven't ever failed to impress me. Have an amazing and safe new year, good sir!
Back when I worked on an ambulance, part of our training was how to recognize and do the initial treatment for people who had been poisoned with organophosphates. I was never on a call for that but it was something we had to know. This was all before I had taken a single chemistry or biology class and now I have my degree in biology. It's pretty cool stuff, but I also thought chemistry and even physics were pretty cool too.
I'm guessing treatment is support breathing until the body metabolises the toxin? I can't think of what else could be done.
In a pinch you can use Datura flower as antidote to cholinterase inhibition as it contains high amounts of atropine.
As a kid we loved when the city fogging machine (pickup with a fogger) came by....was a blast running thru the fog over and over! And running thru the fog wait what!
@David Barr late 90ies I did school maintenance in Canada, the main task at the time was checking all the ballasts of the lights to see if PCB or not, if they where they'd get changed. Instructions should a tube every fall and break was to evacuate the school, yes, the whole Fing school, then after ventilating the room was to look for any droplets of mercury with a special vacuum to suck them up, then a normal cleaning. (Take a guess how often we wasted time with that lol!)
My grandpa grew up on a farm in the late 30s thru the 40s until leaving for the army in the 50s and then college where he got his PhD and became a chem professor. He passed this last December and I spent a lot of undeserved time with him and it's why this video was recommended to me. I love the sciences and agriculture and so did he so this video hit a real special spot for me. Wish it'd been made prior to his passing so we could talk about these compounds. At 86 he could still rattle off some crazy stuff that I wish I comprehended more of.
bro i found a bunch of these in my basement. how the heck was i living with these in the basement for long. them things were offgassing the whole time. threw them out in the shed and i could still smell them out there. had to take them into the community chemical drive where you load up your chemicals in the truck and take them to someone who can deal with them. bro you think lead is bad for you. that mercury is really bad. we found what felt like a little 20 pound bottle of mercury about 500 ml liter in size once in a abandoned lab and opened it and the vapors came wafting out they were so concentrated and the bottle had been sitting there for so long
I _heard_ DDT was *so effective* it is singularly the reason bedbugs passed into legend in 1st world countries before their resurgence in the mid 2010s.
My grandparents had a bed bug infestation which only subsided after a "nuclear option" of spraying literally every piece of floor, baseboard and upholstery with cypermethrin.
Today, the common treatment for them is to heat the whole house to at least 104F/40C for several hours!
@@5roundsrapid263 if you live in the right place you could just leave the ac off in the summer
Bedbugs are pretty resistant to everything except high temperatures .
DDT is still approved for treating them ( indoors ) , but , is fairly pointless as most of them are completely immune to it .
As matter of fact , resistance to DDT was quickly noticed not long after DDT was first introduced .
The newest pyrethrins work , but , they rapidly gain resistance to those as well .
If you ever are unfortunate enough to acquire these little bastards as houseguests , burning the house down and building a new one may be the most economical and expedient route to eliminating them IME .
At least they are not a significant disease vector , excluding mental illness , from being driven completely insane .
@@wades623 explains why we've never had a bedbug problem here in Australia.
I love your love of random chemicals
Story time:
Decades ago I'd inherited an old allotment. Like this video, I had a lot of junk to clear out. Within the shed junk were random bottles of 'stuff'. Within it all, I found a small glass bottle of what appeared to be a treatment for roses - the label was mostly rotted off. When I moved that bottle (I had gloves on) the metal lid leaked and I hadn't noticed it. Some of the liquid got onto my glove. It was a hot day and casually I had wiped my forehead.
That tiny quantity of liquid that had gotten onto my glove made it onto my forehead. I realised immediately that it happened as I felt this strange sensation of a liquid spreading over my face - like a cool liquid spreading over my face like a sheet. It was awful. No nasty tingling - just the feeling of a cold liquid sheet spreading like a mask. It moved fast and was headed to my mouth so I quickly ran to a garden tap and shoved my head under the flow of a fully open tap.
I don't think any harm was done but wow - to feel the method by which garden chemicals work was uncanny.
Do you know what it was?
@@mamupelu565 Sorry for the late response. No - the label was gone off it. The remains of the label showed a rose flower and so that's what I'd guessed it was for. The bottle was small and brown. I'm in the UK.
My grandfather uses copper sulfate on walnut and apple trees against fungi. It leaves a faint green color on the tree. Like the one you found it has that same turquoise color. I don't know how effective it was but I remember times where it didn't work well.
I know this isn't your usual stuff, but this was fascinating. More chemical history, please!
This video was so fascinating. Hearing the history of this stuff along with the chemistry was so cool. The way you explained it as well was very well done.
been watching your content for years. good shit. keep it up and happy new year mate.
As someone who formulates modern insecticides and herbicides this video is such a time capsule, thanks for sharing
Thanks for the work you do!
Hi, I live in Bordeaux, we was using it for grapes, and yes it's anti-fongic (used against something we call "mildiou", a white surface mushroom)
Ayyy you live in the place that made the powder! Cool!!
Just a few years ago I was helping clean a garage and found a can of DDT insecticide, it was a liquid and the can was made to screw onto the muffler of yer lawnmower so you could fog the bugs with it while I cut the grass. 🤢
Love hearing about the Lead/Arsenic stuff, that is what has totally destroyed the area I live (shoutouts to Asarco for making everything toxic!).
I really like these chemical history videos, I hope you do some more :)
Mate, you exploring dangerous old chemicals is a great format, would love to see other stuff like this.
I recently handed in a can of wood paint with Lindane in it to the public hazardous waste collection. It's kinda scary what nasty chemicals still sit in the sheds and shelves of usually elderly people.
And of course many of those sheds ultimately succumb to a fire, a hurricane/windstorm, a tornado or something similar.
elderly people themselves often emit dangerous levels of radiation
Where I live it's not uncommon to come across cy mag or strychnine.
11:47 I've got a degree in biochemistry and a degree in cell biology and I still think it's fascinating that humans and ants can be poisoned in similar ways, that's a main crux for me wanting to study veterinary toxicology in vet school lol
seems crazy to me that a few grapes can kill a dog ..
This is awesome. Rating the containers was a nice touch.
The minute you drop this stuff off to a lab to be "destroyed" you bloody well know they'll just start jumping with joy they get to play with banned chemicals.
If some of these aren't incinerated just right, you release even worse things. I think they are going to be pretty nervous. Oh, I forgot, this is in Australia. You're probably right.
1.) I'd love another video just like this, if you do find a chemical disposal place see if you can check out what old chemicals they have maybe?
2.) is there any chemistry that could be done with these chems before tossing them?
"Oh yes sir here's all the old chemicals we have"
Back in the eighties I used to work in forestry. We used to spray for a sap drinking beetle, at first we used an organophosphate then due to changing rules we swapped to pyrithrin the difference was day and night while spraying the organophosphate you could observe the beetles falling of the plant sized trees immediately whereas with the pyrithrin there was no visible effects although it was effective given time. There were little precautions taken back then and we all had cold and even flu symptoms after use. Love your vids by the way.
I heard of walls that had been applied with ddt could kill insect that simply touch them
Love your channels, bud! Hope you find the time to keep the videos coming!
It's interesting seeing you talk about copper sulphate. I had a job as a design engineer in Europe and the drive/move away from neonictanoids was causing people to home brew their own pesticides. Mostly from 10% acetic acid, copper sulphates, peppermint oil and white clay. No idea if they work or if they are any better for environment getting people to homebrew and eyeball chemical cocktails at home.
They also sell it to pour down sewer lines to kill tree roots to prevent clogging. I have a jar of it.
@@greendryerlint sounds smart
Copper Sulfate is still used sparingly in the wine industry to deal with unwanted volatile sulfer compounds like hydrogen sulfide produced during fermentation. The precipitant has to be filtered off and the concentration of copper sulfate permitted in wine is highly regulated. Many winemakers shy away from it though due to its toxicity.
Copper sulfate is a bad thing in distillation, though. It means you really messed up somewhere in the process.
@@5roundsrapid263 Do you mean copper sulfate forming during distillation (still leaching out?) Or prior? I dont disagree, just not sure where it would come from. I dont know much of the finer points of distilled spirits other than I like to drink them.
Fasinating. Thank you for talking about all the creepy chemicals you found in the shed ^^
One of my favourite videos to date!
I love that he mentions he doesnt know all that much about biology but likes how interesting it is. I'm a biology guy that doesnt know all that much about chemistry, and I come here for my wacky interdisciplinary fix.
Deltamethrin is still in use, same as bifenthrin and imidacloprid. The latter 2 work great for termites as well. We use thousands of gallons (diluted solution mixed per the label) a year to treat pre construction foundation elements for homes as well as active termite infestations or just as a preventative.
Yeah lots of "-ethrin" chemicals are very widely used. Including the tetramethrin acting as the main ingredient in the fly spray right next to me lol
@@helplmchoking permethrin and amethrin in thermal cells and mosquito coils too
We use a lot of pyrethroids
Are they as effective as Chlordane? That was awesome for termites (not so much for kids), and lasted 20 years in the ground.
@@firstmkblol no. But at the benefit off no voc and much less toxicity and stays where you put it if applied properly compared to chlordane
*Pulls out tube of DDT, an infamous insectide*
FLY IMMEDIATELY LANDS ON TUBE OF DDT
That fly landing on the DDT was perfect, Killer bees seem to be doing okay. Awesome video, I learned a lot. Thank you.
30 years ago, we had a massive ant nest appear above our septic tank. My dad found an old can of Dieldrin in the shed, told me all about it, and then spread a little on the nest.
That shit is like a nuclear bomb for insects. Didnt see another ant around there ever again.
My dad pronounced it "deel-drin"
Lol yeah I can imagine! Terrifying really
I'm eight minutes into this video and I've just realised: I think this is the most "formal" I've seen you. Clean labcoat, safety glasses, gloves. Lookin good
You haven't gotten to the lead arsenate yet, that's when it makes sense. :P
HILARIOUS showing the shots of the people eating with the clouds of DDT blowing around them!
On the subject of lead, there is a worldwide trend in that about 25 years after the use of lead stopping there is a distinct drop in violent crime.
one of my favorite poems is "Shifting Baseline Syndrome" by Aaron Kreuter
an excerpt: "There were never any birds here. The bats were always dying. The wilderness was always accessible for the day rate of twelve fifty a car, and the highly reasonable seasonal rate of a hundred and fifteen. ... Our baselines haven't shifted--you have. ... There was always a view from the airplane window. Always."
One of my primary school teachers (in Australia) used to tell us about how part of her father's job was to stand out in fields to serve as a marker for aircraft spraying DDT
Great video, would enjoy watching more of this style of video if the opportunity presents itself
"to serve as a marker for aircraft spraying DDT"
This combined with the footage of people getting blasted with DDT while eating, swimming, etc. just shorts my brain out. History has so many examples of things that at the time seemed okay, but looking back with a bit more knowledge and it seems horrifically stupid.
Like mercury to color your wallpaper.
Like using pewter for silverware.
This job really deserves a S tier in a fear rank
@@AsmodeusMictian thats why I didnt take the vaccine
Another great video! Keep up the good work! Time's get hard just keep pushing forward!
This video was quite a nice, good job!