Slug pellet sandwich
An allotment holder in Oxford (England)
pleaded guilty on 22 January 1996 to using a pesticide and failing to take
reasonable precautions to protect the health of humans and creatures. A
neighbouring allotment holder noticed an object which appeared to be a jam
sandwich placed strangely on the allotment concerned. Closer investigation
revealed the sandwich contained slug pellets. Similar ‘slug pellet
sandwiches’ were left on consecutive evenings, but were removed by the
adjoining holder after the culprit had gone home, to prevent harm. On being
found guilty, defendant was given a conditional discharge for twelve months
and ordered to pay costs of £1,500.
MAFF Environment Matter Newsletter, No. 18 March 1996.
Gamekeeper fined
A gamekeeper was fined £2,500 at Perth
Sheriff Court in Scotland on 31 October 1995 for laying poison baits—the
highest fine in Scotland for this offence. The gamekeeper had placed hens'
eggs injected with alphachloralose (an anti-coagulant poison) on an exposed
parts of an estate, ostensibly to poison hooded crows, which threatened the
estate’s grouse population. Prosecuting, the Sheriff said such activities
were completely reckless in an area which was home to golden eagles and
other rare birds of prey.
MAFF Environment Matter Newsletter, No. 18 March 1996.
Pesticide bans in
India?
The Central Insecticides Board (CIB) and
Pesticides Committee (PC), Indian government bodies, have sent circulars
reminding pesticide companies that unless specified chemical data is
received, some pesticides would be de-registered. These include endosulfan,
malathion, parathion and benzenehexachloride.
Industry is unprepared for the government's request for
information on the harvest interval—the period between the last pesticide
application and harvest—for re-registration. Industry says generating this
data will require effort and resources, and the chairman of the Pesticides
Association of India, Mr Salil Singhal says: “the industry has been pushed
around too much—it’s time something was done about it.” The CIB
considers that industry profits from pesticides and should bear the cost of
generating safety data.
The Economic Times New Delhi, 8 April 1996.
Good stuff
A recent exchange in the House of Lords on the
OP pesticide demeton-s-methyl took place between anti-pesticide campaigner,
the Countess of Mar and Lord Lucas.
The Countess of Mar: Is the noble Lord aware that when this matter was last reviewed in 1993 only six pages of information were provided? Most of those pages said that there was no information on the effects of this pesticide. That is to be compared with the OP dichlorvos, where the information amounts to 136 pages. Does the noble Lord appreciate that we do not know what this stuff does and therefore we should not be using it?
Lord Lucas: My Lords, “not knowing what this stuff does,” as the noble Baroness puts it, is a characteristic shared by many older pesticides because they were introduced at a time when that information was not required. All such pesticides are in the course of being reviewed. But we draw comfort from that fact that it has been in use for 30 years without the appearance of any known major or unusual problems."
Hansard, Lords, 13 May 1996, Cols 317-318.
[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 32, June 1996, page 18]