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by chicob 2822 days ago
I was about to say that.

From a personal experience (I'm a farmer) the concentrations used in a residential context are exaggeratedly above the recommendation. They are mismeasured and generally high.

Plus, glyphosate preparations need to be corrected in pH (below 5 for maximal efficacy), which is something many people don't do.

The professionals doing weed control in cities absolutely must have training and adequate PPE. The same thing applies to pest control.

I'm not against professional usage of pesticides, but I would be OK with forbidding most insecticides and herbicides for personal usage. The every day insecticide spraying can? That thing is poison. Does anyone use a FFP2 mask or even a simple cotton mask? Many permetrine-based insecticides don't even mention that this active substance is specially deadly to cats.

1 comments

>I'm not against professional usage of pesticides, but I would be OK with forbidding most insecticides and herbicides for personal usage

That is entirely unreasonable as a conclusion. It leads to a world where only people rich enough to hire landscapers and exterminators are able to control insects and weeds.

Of course insecticide is poison. That's literally the point. Don't breathe it, get it on you, or let your pets around it. It's not difficult advice to abide by.

You make a good point but I wouldn’t banning a potentially dangerous chemical that requires expert use to be safe “entirely unreasonable”. In fact the same is true for most such compounds, at least in large parts of Western Europe (less so in the US, I think, but something as harmless as Sudafed is a counter-example): there are many industrial chemicals which you cannot (or only via detours) purchase legally in stores.

I’m generally not a fan of such regulations because most of these chemicals have no common use and the potential for abuse is therefore relatively small. But for many pesticides and herbicides, the potential for harmful misuse is very real.

I usually can find several consumer-grade insecticides that make no mention of the active substances they contain, the health risks, and security or no-entry intervals.

If informed professionals need this information, won't lay people need it as well?