In the war against home and garden pests, over 70 million American households make more than 4 billion pesticide applications per year. Indeed, 85% of America's 84.5 million households maintain a home arsenal averaging three to four pesticide products, ranging from pest strips, bait boxes, and bug bombs to flea collars, pesticidal pet shampoos, aerosols, granules, liquids, and dusts. There are over 20,000 different household pesticide products containing over 300 active ingredients and perhaps as many as 1,700 inert ingredients, according to the National Home and Garden Pesticide Use Survey, which was prepared for the EPA by the Research Triangle Institute in 1990. Seventy-five percent of American households use insecticides, with cockroaches and ants the leading targets.
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