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Post by oldmoleskins on Apr 1, 2009 17:59:22 GMT
Apologies if someone more on the ball than me has covered this before, but I was stunned to hear in the ironmongers today that SC weedkiller will shortly be 'banned'. Illegal. Gone.
Our shop won't be re-ordering after May and all unsold stocks returned to the makers in August.
I've only recently 'rediscovered' the joys of sodium chlorate having spent years attempting to clear paths with 'proprietory' weedkillers, and plan to lay in stocks - but if you do likewise be aware
a) it needs to be kept somewhere warm, dry and preferably in a sealed container (even if unopened) to stop it somehow attracting moisture and
b) - and this is alarming - stockpiling may be illegal... there's the suggestion that to have it in quantity could be interpreted as "having it for the purposes of resale"!!!
OM.
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Post by Dr Bill on Apr 1, 2009 19:09:09 GMT
I do believe that you can make an explosive with sodium chlorate so watch out for the defense against terrorism act!
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Post by Tig on Apr 1, 2009 19:38:23 GMT
Blimey! Whatever next! Perhaps they will shortly ban table salt just to be on the safe side!
I have some left from last year must check it is OK ...
Thanks for the warning OM
x Tig
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Post by Spruance on Apr 8, 2009 19:12:53 GMT
I happened to notice that my local Wilkos seemed to have Sodium Chlorate in abundance yesterday OM. Perhaps you should hasten down to yours and get stocked up. You could always bury it in the garden. If it was ok for Home Guard munitions in the war etc.  |
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Post by oldmoleskins on Apr 9, 2009 7:02:21 GMT
I happened to notice that my local Wilkos seemed to have Sodium Chlorate in abundance yesterday OM. Perhaps you should hasten down to yours and get stocked up. You could always bury it in the garden. If it was ok for Home Guard munitions in the war etc. Well this relates back to Dr B's post... I spent many a happy hour risking permanent mutilation as a kid experimenting - but I was under the impression they took the 'ooomph' out of it a while back. So why ban it now? Does it kill laboratory rats if shovelled into them? OM. |
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Post by torontotrini on Apr 9, 2009 13:43:54 GMT
We've got a pretty long list of herbicides/pesticides that will be coming off the shelves over the next couple months under a new provincial law that bans the use of "cosmetic pesticides and herbicides". I'm not sure what are the particular chemical compound they're looking to eliminate I think copper sulphate is one of them - , but as far as the law is drafted and the public discussions have gone, it has nothing to do with terrorism or security concerns. Farmers are going to be exempt from the ban - don't know where they are going to buy the products from if they take them off the shelves; probably directly from the manufacturers, I suppose. Not sure about golf courses. Golf clubs have been lobbying to be exempted from the banned use. Like most people, I support the idea. I have used herbicides and pesticides, but really only as a last resort when I get desperate. We can't deny that pesticide/herbicide use does have a negative impact on the environment/wildlife and potentially, on people's health. So I'm all for it.
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Post by oldmoleskins on Apr 9, 2009 15:11:34 GMT
We've got a pretty long list of herbicides/pesticides that will be coming off the shelves over the next couple months under a new provincial law that bans the use of "cosmetic pesticides and herbicides"... Interesting development, TT - I wonder if it's coming our way... Your FDA or whatever it is would seem to want to make the distinction between, say, my wish to keep a gravel path weedfree and a farmer's need to keep fields weedfree. Fair point - I s'pose mine is pretty frivolous and the farmer's serious business by comparison - but then I don't overspray wildlife (here, 'open field' species: hares, skylarks, grey partridge, toads, frogs, snakes) and the difference in quantity between private and commercial usage must be huge... has there been any reaction from private gardeners? It should surely be the other way round - ban/limit the use in commercial food production, but allow small-scale use around the garden where we are in control of our own food destiny. OM. |
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Post by torontotrini on Apr 9, 2009 15:32:56 GMT
Point taken, oldmoleskins. I guess it's one of these things where it might be said that the devil is in the logic. Yes, there probably is a greater need for farmers to be able to use pesticides (not sure about the herbicides) to control the pests that destroy their crops, a.k.a. our food. But given the quantitities they probably have to use, there is probably a considerable impact on the environment/wildlife. I might think though, that the combined effect of hundreds of thousands (millions) of private households using pesticides/herbicides might even exceed use by farms. Another way some people might look at it, is that banning cosmetic use around homes, and allowing "necessary" use by farmers would at least reduce the total impact that arises from both farmers and households using the products.
The reaction from private gardeners has generally been supportive - at least it could be taken that way because there wasn't a lot of criticism/protest against the ban. The City of Toronto actually was first in putting that kind of ban in place a couple years ago, but now the provincial government has moved to have the ban at the provincial level for all of Ontario.
No; we don't have a FDA here. That's the US. In the division of powers here between the federal government and the provinces, jurisdiction over that sort of thing (agriculture and related stuff) falls to the provincial governments.
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Post by Spruance on Apr 9, 2009 19:42:23 GMT
This is the same sort of thing as happened a while back with Jeyes Fluid although I suspect that some people still have some of the original formula left.  |
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Post by Barbara on Apr 9, 2009 19:45:17 GMT
And the stuff you put on privets to stop them growing to quickly, that was banned a couple of years ago  . I think it was called stop-n-grow. |
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. I think it was called stop-n-grow.