In working towards our new idea of a composting service for florists, we have done some research into the effects of pesticides on soil in composts as a large proportion (if not all) of the flowers sold by florists are treated with these (particularly those which are imported).
Studies find that "whatever traces of herbicides there may be in your compost are at such low concentrations that any impact will be far outweighed by the benefits of the compost...what has also been seen for the vast majority of these compounds is that plants do not take them up from soils."
"compost is a rich, dark, crumbly mixture of decomposed leaves, food scraps, and other organic matter (i.e., carbon-based, or derived from a living organism). Compost is much, much more than the sum of its parts. Thanks to fungi, worms, various invertebrates such as centipedes and beetles, and billions of beneficial microorganisms, that mix of nitrogen-rich and carbon-rich bits and pieces you toss on the compost pile—what those in the know call “feedstock”—is transformed into something else entirely."
"A literature review of more than 100 studies on pesticide biodegradation published in the journal Compost Science & Utilization in 2000 concluded in part that none of the composts analysed in the cited studies exceeded concentrations thought to affect human health or be phytotoxic to sensitive plants."
The findings from these studies means that there is no issue for us in composting flowers which have been treated with pesticides as they will not affect the soil.
Source
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