Expert Witness Blog
Pesticides expert witnesses may write reports and opine on pesticide contamination, insects, pesticide products, and pest control. Here, the EPA discusses pest control devices.
Pesticides are commonly thought of as chemicals. But EPA also has a role in regulating devices used to control pests. How a device might be regulated, however, depends on the device’s specific design and function and whether it incorporates or is used with a pesticide.
A product is a pesticide if it incorporates a substance or mixture of substances designed to prevent, attract, repel, destroy, or mitigate a pest. A product is a pest control device (or “device”) if it uses only physical or mechanical means to trap, destroy, repel, or mitigate any pest and does not include any pesticidal substance or mixture of substances. For example, an ant trap would NOT be considered a pest control device, because it contains a pesticide chemical substance intended to work in concert with the physical container. It is therefore subject to regulation under pesticide law.