Pesticide Handling, Mixing, Loading, Storage, Transport, and Disposal
These questions test whether you can keep concentrate out of people and out of the environment between the jug and the nozzle. California adds storage, containment, and container-disposal requirements on top of the label.
Storage
Store pesticides in a locked, posted, ventilated area with an impermeable floor, separated from food, feed, seed, and animal medications. Keep labels legible, maintain an inventory, and follow permit conditions for restricted materials. Absorbent material and a spill kit belong at the door. Never store a pesticide in a container that could be mistaken for food or drink - that is both a classic poisoning scenario and a violation.
Mixing and loading
Mix at the application site when practical, away from wells, ditches, and surface water. Use a backflow preventer, air gap, or nurse tank; never drop a hose into a tank and walk away. Add products in label order, usually compatibility agents first, then dry flowables, then liquids. Rinsate belongs in the spray tank, never on the ground. Wear the label's mixing PPE.
Containers and disposal
Triple rinse or pressure rinse, pour rinsate into the tank, then puncture or crush containers and dispose of them as the label and local rules direct; clean HDPE may be accepted by recycling programs. Never reuse a pesticide container, never burn one, and never leave one where it collects water.
Transport
Transport in a secured, labeled container in a cargo area, never with food, feed, or passengers. Carry a spill kit and know DOT shipping-paper and placarding thresholds for large quantities.
Worked example
A 300-gallon tank, sprayer calibrated at 25 GPA, label rate 2 pt/A. Acres per tank = 300 ÷ 25 = 12. Product needed = 12 × 2 pt = 24 pt = 3 gallons. Triple rinsing three 2.5-gallon jugs yields roughly a gallon of rinsate that goes into the next tank, not the ditch - legal, and the product is not wasted.
Traps that cost marks
Mixing beside the wellhead; dumping rinsate; storing pesticides with feed; treating "empty" containers as trash when they legally hold residue until properly rinsed; and back-siphoning into the water supply.