Do you apply pesticides (notably glyphosate) as part of you job? Could you do your job without the use of glyphosate?
Do you operate only cultural methods of weed control? Do you agree with the use of glyphosate in commercial horticulture?
What risk do you associate with the use of glyphosate? Are we always told the truth by the likes of Monsanto?
Fashion designer Katharine Hamnett is waging a campaign to have glyphosate banned in Britsih parks after seeing it sprayed in her local park.
Hamnett wrote on her website:
"outraged by the indiscriminate, unnecessary and unannounced use of Monsanto's 'Roundup' herbicide in our local park".
The park in question is London Fields, Hackney.
Here's Hamnett's letter in full but you can read it here too:
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Kim Wright, corporate director of health & community services at Hackney Council, said: “This product has been declared safe and environmentally friendly by government and it is used by councils across the country for weed control as well as being widely on sale to the public.”
Press coverage:
Katharine Hamnett CBE slams council use of weedkiller on London Fields wildflower meadow
http://hackneycitizen.co.uk/2014/05/13/katharine-hamnett-ban-glypho...
Campaigners claim the council is spraying poisonous chemicals on London Fields
http://dalstonist.co.uk/campaigners-claim-the-council-is-spraying-p...
Maybe if the contractors were a little more careful with their applications, they wouldn't draw so much attention to use of herbicides. Around here it seems the norm that every tree, post, fence, kerb edge, inspection cover etc etc needs a barren 2ft weed/grass-free exclusion zone and if the wind is blowing at the time off application, the zone will be elliptical in nature extending to 3ft.
Sadly alot of people with poor understanding of herbicde use (notice her calling herbicides pesticides which are a whole different, and more dangerous class of chemical) whipping up a storm... not helped by councils using poorly paid and poorly trained staff - the other day my hedge got sprayed with glyph by a chap on a quad bike riding my estate spraying the kerbs....
Again if they didnt spray on breezy days, spreayed when the public are not out and about as much IE mornings not lunch hours etc and the staff paid more attention to their job/training the problem (percived) would not be their.
Her concerns are understandable given all the bad publicity and false information about herbicides/pesticides that the public get feed by activists and pressure groups fighting against the MAN and his Evil Corp Inc. Still it'll be a nice bit of kudos for Ms Hamnett CBE if she suceeds.
Knee jerk reaction from someone seeking publicity and a 'platform', but totally agree with David's comments that we bring some of it on ourselves.
I've lost count how many times I've seen threads where clearly people are spraying illegally and thus are not in a position to understand 'best practice'.
Even worse, is people WHO are trained not taking care or simply can't be bothered to follow their training and improve the level of their service.
Additionally, I'm manic about when, where and what we use when spraying. Of course pesticides are dangerous, how can they be anything else considering their brief ! We often schedule out of hours/weekends to have clear access with no public and the ability to exlucde areas (not always possible, but we try).
We have 4 people (inc me) with the ability to spray and a couple of years ago we purposely dropped the White CSI suits and now use equilivant blue or light green suits (amazing how it cuts down on 'what ya doing?' comments..)
I know LJN is planning a roadshow around the UK called "Practical Pesticides" to help educate and improve people's knowldege and would suggest making the effort to attend (even if it means a bit of committment and travel).
Come on ! How often is it provided on a 'plate' ?
David Cox said:
I'm pretty much against spraying chemicals but understand that sometimes there is no alternative. I did the PA1/PA2 course because it was part of my Agriculture course.
I believe the term pesticide is the general term which includes: herbicides, insecticides and fungicides ( as well as lumbricides, rodenticides etc)
David Cox said:
"Fashion designer Katharine Hamnett has started a one-woman campaign to ban herbicides from Britain’s parks as she says eating a picnic has become akin to drinking the chemical straight from a bottle."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/10836477/Katharine-Hamnet...
This is an interesting - and timely - article on the Guardian this morning.
"The point is that every time anti-chemical slogans are used people are being misinformed."
http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2014/may/19/manmade-natural...
Making Sense of Chemical Stories
http://www.senseaboutscience.org/pages/making-sense-of-chemical-sto...
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