Our Fondness for Environment Pollution
It's beyond belief that despite evidence supporting the claims of the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, and provincial medical bodies that the use of residential pesticides/herbicides for the purpose of cosmetically enhancing the lawns of peoples' houses is health-detrimental, a determined group of home owners insist this is their right and continue to contract chemical lawn-spraying out to lawn-care companies.
Thus deliberately and with foreknowledge delivering a message to their neighbours that the state of their greensward trumps the health of neighbourhood children and pets, the neighbours themselves, and area wildlife. The city of Ottawa has long flirted with the possibility of outlawing the use of chemical pesticides for homeowners, but has never been successful in garnering sufficient council votes to make it a reality, despite the fact that the majority of people in the city support a total ban.
Other cities in Canada have taken the decision to ban pesticide use for cosmetic purposes and for those residents the issue is off the table completely. This is, after all, a public health issue. Why would any responsible individual value a green lawn over public health? The belief, to begin with, that a green lawn can only be achieved with the use of pesticides and herbicides is fallacious, since it can be easily enough observed that people who eschew the use of these chemicals have lawns as weed-free and green as lawn-care clients.
Still, it isn't a weed-free and lovely green lawn that is at issue; it's the health of the community at large. Chemicals washing into the water table from lawn-pesticide use doesn't contribute to the public good. Children exposed to the ill effects of pesticides sprayed on neighbours' lawns is the issue. It boggles the mind that so many people with young children, who also have family pets feel it is their right to pollute a common environment, signing on to lawn care whose results favours no living thing.
Area lawn care companies have formed a lobby group to defend their business, and have named it in the most Orwellian manner conceivable: the "Ottawa Environmental Coalition", whose sole function it is to persuade local politicians and those citizens who remain besotted with their services that the work they provide is a valuable asset to the community, and there is no danger inherent in their rampant spraying of lawn chemicals.
Local politicians appear to be confused on the issue; whether to recognize it as a property-rights issue, or a public health issue. A poll newly released by Oracle Poll Research indicates that roughly 80% of a representative group of Ottawans views the cosmetic use of pesticides as a public health issue.
Putting aside the perceived rights of property owners to use products they deem necessary to enabling themselves to attain a cosmetically-pleasing appearance of their property, these are products which have proven to be deleterious to the public health. Reasonably, there can never be a recognizable right to proceed with an option that contributes to the ill health of other people and threatens the community environment.
Past time Ottawa City Council took the initiative and passed restrictions on residential lawn pesticides.
Thus deliberately and with foreknowledge delivering a message to their neighbours that the state of their greensward trumps the health of neighbourhood children and pets, the neighbours themselves, and area wildlife. The city of Ottawa has long flirted with the possibility of outlawing the use of chemical pesticides for homeowners, but has never been successful in garnering sufficient council votes to make it a reality, despite the fact that the majority of people in the city support a total ban.
Other cities in Canada have taken the decision to ban pesticide use for cosmetic purposes and for those residents the issue is off the table completely. This is, after all, a public health issue. Why would any responsible individual value a green lawn over public health? The belief, to begin with, that a green lawn can only be achieved with the use of pesticides and herbicides is fallacious, since it can be easily enough observed that people who eschew the use of these chemicals have lawns as weed-free and green as lawn-care clients.
Still, it isn't a weed-free and lovely green lawn that is at issue; it's the health of the community at large. Chemicals washing into the water table from lawn-pesticide use doesn't contribute to the public good. Children exposed to the ill effects of pesticides sprayed on neighbours' lawns is the issue. It boggles the mind that so many people with young children, who also have family pets feel it is their right to pollute a common environment, signing on to lawn care whose results favours no living thing.
Area lawn care companies have formed a lobby group to defend their business, and have named it in the most Orwellian manner conceivable: the "Ottawa Environmental Coalition", whose sole function it is to persuade local politicians and those citizens who remain besotted with their services that the work they provide is a valuable asset to the community, and there is no danger inherent in their rampant spraying of lawn chemicals.
Local politicians appear to be confused on the issue; whether to recognize it as a property-rights issue, or a public health issue. A poll newly released by Oracle Poll Research indicates that roughly 80% of a representative group of Ottawans views the cosmetic use of pesticides as a public health issue.
Putting aside the perceived rights of property owners to use products they deem necessary to enabling themselves to attain a cosmetically-pleasing appearance of their property, these are products which have proven to be deleterious to the public health. Reasonably, there can never be a recognizable right to proceed with an option that contributes to the ill health of other people and threatens the community environment.
Past time Ottawa City Council took the initiative and passed restrictions on residential lawn pesticides.
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posted by Pieface @ 1:20 PM
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