One of the most important sources of polluted water with high pesticide content is the rinsing of empty pesticide containers. In this paper, a pre-industrial TiO2-solar photocatalytic treatment is used to prevent such pollution of continental waters and 10 commercial pesticides are used at various initial concentrations to demonstrate the treatment. Total organic carbon (TOC) analysis is employed to confirm the total mineralization of the contaminants. The results are compared with phenol degradation under the same experimental conditions. Relative photonic efficiency related to TOC (zeta(r),(TOC)) is calculated to facilitate comparison with other experimental devices. Furthermore, a kinetic model is proposed for fitting experimental data by an approximate kinetic solution which has the analytical form of a Langmuir-Hinshelwood equation but without its original significance. Finally, an example of calculation of solar plant size from experimental and solar radiation data is shown. (C)2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.