Pesticide residue

What remains on or in a crop after treatment, and in the textiles made from it. Cotton is one of the most heavily treated crops grown, and residue can survive into finished fabric. Food tolerances are set per chemical rather than for the mixture people actually eat.

Definition and health context from EPA.

We checked 11,795 products for pesticide residue and confirmed it in none, while 65 remain plausible and unresolved.
PFAS Authority, October 2026. Free to cite with a link. See the full dataset.
What a flag here means. Reported and likely mean we found real evidence, a published ingredient, a test result or a recall. Possible means the material or the category makes it credible and nobody has ruled it out. 120 products were checked for it and came back with nothing known. A flag is not a measurement, and we say which is which on every product page.

Where pesticide residue turns up

Categories we grade, worst first, as a share of what we scored in each.

CategoryFlaggedScoredShare
Frozen Food Packaging41527%
Period Care1425%
Tampons188521%
Stain-Resistant Bed Sheets21513%
Area Rugs21513%
Scrubs1813%
Cast Iron Seasoning119212%
Clothing1911%
Throw Pillows1157%
Period Pads5866%
Setting Spray1166%
Wrinkle-Free Dress Shirts1166%
Period Underwear4944%
Tablecloths31063%

We confirmed it in nothing, and that is the finding

Every one of the 65 flags for pesticide residue in this database sits at possible. No published ingredient list, test result or recall in what we have read puts it in a specific product we grade. That is a genuine answer to the question, and it is different from saying the products are clean.

What to buy instead

Highest scoring products with no flag for it, in the categories where it is worst.

How to spot pesticide residue yourself

What is actually visible to someone holding the product, which for most of these is the only check available.

  • Certified organic and GOTS certification both restrict what can be used on the crop.
  • Conventional cotton is one of the most heavily treated crops grown, and residue can survive into finished fabric.
  • OEKO-TEX Standard 100 tests the finished textile rather than the farming, which is a different guarantee.
  • There is no residue labelling on produce at all, so the Dirty Dozen style lists are the only consumer signal.

Where it turns up outside our data

Conventional cotton clothing and bedding, fresh produce, and some botanical supplements.

What the rules actually say

The EPA sets a tolerance for each pesticide on each crop and the USDA Pesticide Data Program tests against them. Those tolerances are set per chemical, not for the mixture a person actually eats across a week, which is the gap the research keeps pointing at. Textiles carry no residue disclosure requirement.

Read alongside EPA and our state by state guide to PFAS bans.

Answers about pesticide residue, with every source linked

The other chemicals we screen for

Every product here is checked against all of these, so a product that clears pesticide residue may still be flagged for one of them.

Common questions

What is pesticide residue?

What remains on or in a crop after treatment, and in the textiles made from it. Cotton is one of the most heavily treated crops grown, and residue can survive into finished fabric. Food tolerances are set per chemical rather than for the mixture people actually eat.

Which products contain pesticide residue?

We flagged 65 of 11,795 graded products as plausible, and confirmed it in none of them. That is worth stating plainly. It means the material or the category makes it credible and no independent result has ruled it out, not that we found it. Frozen French Fries & Frozen Food Bags carries the most plausible cases at 27%.

Is pesticide residue in frozen french fries & frozen food bags?

More than in anything else we grade. 4 of the 15 frozen french fries & frozen food bags we scored carry a flag for it, which is 27%. The full breakdown per product is on each product page.

What can I buy instead?

In the categories where it turns up most, the highest scoring products with no flag for it are Natracare Organic Cotton Super Plus Tampons at 100, Natracare 100% Organic Cotton Tampons at 100, Natracare Organic Super Plus Tampons, 3 x 20 ct at 100. Every one of those was graded on the same rubric as the products above.

How can I tell if a product has pesticide residue in it?

Certified organic and GOTS certification both restrict what can be used on the crop. Conventional cotton is one of the most heavily treated crops grown, and residue can survive into finished fabric. OEKO-TEX Standard 100 tests the finished textile rather than the farming, which is a different guarantee. It turns up in conventional cotton clothing and bedding, fresh produce, and some botanical supplements.

Is pesticide residue banned?

The EPA sets a tolerance for each pesticide on each crop and the USDA Pesticide Data Program tests against them. Those tolerances are set per chemical, not for the mixture a person actually eats across a week, which is the gap the research keeps pointing at. Textiles carry no residue disclosure requirement.

How do you know?

We do not lab test. Every grade here is built from published ingredient lists, materials, certifications, brand disclosures, recalls and third party lab results where those already exist. Where a product has been independently tested we use that result and say so, and where a brand publishes nothing we score the silence rather than guessing.

1% of everything we grade carries a flag for pesticide residue. See every hazard we track or browse the full products list.