Enforcement 4/26: E-commerce Pesticides 2024

In 2024, the Swedish Chemicals Agency conducted an enforcement project with inspections of pesticides offered in e-commerce. The main objective of the project was to stop sales of illegal pesticides, to prevent harm on the environment and the health of Swedish consumers. We inspected 35 economic operators who offered illegal pesticides through e-commerce. The inspections involved both plant protection products and biocidal products in online stores and on online platforms.

Offers of illegal pesticides were stopped for 33 out of 35 economic operators. Two foreign economic operators have been difficult to identify or locate and have avoided contact with authorities; sales have not yet been stopped in these two cases. A total of 140 product advertisements for illegal pesticides were inspected, 48 concerning plant protection products and 92 concerning biocidal products. For at least 58 percent of the advertisements, our assessment is that a dropshipping business model was used.

We have observed that sales of illegal pesticides are widespread on the internet. Some types of pesticides we often encounter are various insecticides (PT 18 and plant protection products), mouse and rat poisons (PT 14), repellents (PT 19) and agents that are intended to protect plants from mould.

Many operators who supply pesticides to Swedish consumers through e-commerce are located abroad. The origin of the pesticides are often other countries, hence labelling often seem to lack information in Swedish.

Knowledge of pesticide regulations is generally very low among those who sell the products in e-commerce. Many sellers, especially those with large product ranges who use dropshipping, are not aware that they are selling pesticides.

Our assessment is that there is still a great need for continuous enforcement of pesticides in e-commerce, since it is still easy for consumers to find illegal products online. Sales of pesticides which have not been evaluated and approved are problematic as they often entail risks for Swedish customers or the environment.

In the project, we have participated in collaborations with Nordic regulatory authorities in Denmark, Finland and Norway, as well as the European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats (EMPACT).