There is public concern about heavy metals adverse effects on human health and environment. The heavy metal based herbicides and/or their formulations use may be restricted to specific areas to minimize their adverse effects.
Glyphosate is one such notorious herbicide containing significant proportion of heavy metals ...
Glyphosate herbicides, such as Roundup, Ranger, and Rodeo contain heavy metals such as arsenic
In response to the comments above, heavy metals are not an active ingredient in Glyphosate based herbicides (even if present as a process/production contaminant). I assume what Makhan was concerned about was some the older chemicals where the heavy metal is the active ingredient. As far as I am aware, most of these are for pest / disease (especially fungal) control rather than weed control. For example, cadmium chloride and cadmium succinate were used to control turfgrass diseases, mercury compounds (mercury(II) chloride) were used for seed coatings or to treat bulbs and tubers. Lead arsenate was used as an insecticide. Although there may be a legacy from previous usage, I'm not sure these are still in common use. Copper is still however used as a fungicide in various forms and this is an environmental risk, particularly in fruit (esp grape vine) growing areas.
Dear Makhan,
Few amount of herbicides contain Heavy metals as active ingredients. But there is a possibility to add those toxins in the local market, because addition of those heavy metal containing chemicals can enhance the performance of the herbicide. Agrochemical industry is a highly competitive industry. Therefore people do anything to enhance the activity of their product. It is better to buy the commercially available agrochemicals from the local market and check for the availability of heavy metals.
The answer will depend upon which country you are asking about. Countries with strong pesticide regulations (e.g., European Union, Canada, USA) have largely done away with metal-based pesticides, as Andrew Butler stated. in the USA, metal-based pesticides/herbicides/fungicides are still used, but their legal uses are very limited; for example:
-copper sulfate is still actively used in grape growing and in the suppression of algae in water reservoirs (makes them blue!)
-copper oxide and copper thiocyanate are still used in antifouling paints (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-fouling_paint)
-arsenic is still allowed as a wood preservative in several forms (e.g., see https://www3.epa.gov/pesticides/chem_search/reg_actions/reregistration/red_G-22_1-Sep-08.pdf for list)
-arsenic is still allowed as a food additive for poultry in a product called "roxarsone" ( C6AsNH6O6), see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roxarsone
-chromium, copper, and arsenic are still allowed as a wood preservative called "copper chromated arsenate" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromated_copper_arsenate), although its uses are strictly regulated
-zinc is used in both antifouling paints (e.g., Trilux 33 Aerosol (zinc pyrithione), Alumaspray Plus (zinc pyrithione)) and several pesticides
and there are still more uses out there. if you want to see what metal-based pesticides were previously used, as well as which are still used, in the USA, two good websites are
-http://npirspublic.ceris.purdue.edu/ppis/
-http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/chemical/monster2.htm (more detailed, but less user friendly)
but these websites only contain information on pesticides/herbicides/fungicides, and not on antifouling paints and antibacterial feed supplements... and may not contain info on wood preservatives.
Application of herbicide depends on which country you want to apply them
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