Not Everyone Follows The Rules For Pesticides
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Not Everyone Follows The Rules For Pesticides
Date:
Wed, 30 Oct 2002 09:46:32 -0500
From:
Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide
Regulation
cc: Christine Whitman whitman.christine@epa.gov
Tuesday October 29, 2002 - Kitchener-Waterloo Record
Not Everyone Follows The Rules For Pesticides
Several times each summer, a lawn-care crew, mostly teenagers without safety protection, sprays pesticides on grass around my apartment building. Is this bad for me? I can hold my breath and walk through it. Is this bad for them? Maybe, but they don't seem concerned.
Once, after the crew left, there was a man on the lawn kicking around a soccer ball with his two young children. They must not have seen or understood the small sign out on the distant boulevard, saying "Danger: Pesticide Use."
All three were rolling in the grass, touching the ball to their faces, clothes and hair. Then I had to tell them to stop, because they were putting their health at risk.
If we accept the lawn-care industry's claim that their products are safe when instructions are followed, it is the possibility of self-regulated, responsible pesticide use that is questionable. From first-hand experience, I know that lawn-care workers, like many other people, put their own and others' health second to productivity. Some even flout safety measures as a matter of machismo.
Besides, they say, if lawn chemicals (or paint or wood preservative or cleaning products) were actually bad for you, then why would they sell them in the store? Many consumers have similar attitudes. Far too many consumers and workers are not cognizant of the risks involved, or have simply concluded that the risks are too small to worry about. Yet everyone has a right to kick the ball around on the grass, or do their summer job, without risking their health.
Local proponents of the bylaw for Waterloo Region have aptly demonstrated that green, healthy lawns can be easily kept without the use of cosmetic pesticides. The rewards of cosmetic pesticides are simply not worth the risks, particularly those posed by the carelessness or ignorance of those consumers or lawn-care workers who do not follow the instructions on the package.
Luigi D'Agnillo
Waterloo
http://www.therecord.com/opinion/letters/opinion_letters_021029101020.html
ŠKitchener-Waterloo Record 2000
225 Fairway Road South,
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, N2G 4E5
519-894-2231
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