Common Sense Pest Control is a handbook
produced with an environmental grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency
which aims to reduce the use of toxic pesticides by educating residents of a
local area in Florida on least toxic pest control methods. The aim is not to
develop a 'no pesticides ever' programme. It utilises integrated pest
management (IPM) techniques that emphasise non-chemical pest control, and the
use of pesticides is suggested only as a last resort and only when
necessary.
In the case for example of insect control, the handbook has a
recipe for the use of insecticidal soaps and oils, Bacillus thuringiensis,
diatomaceous earth, boric acid, pyrethrins insect growth regulators, insect
traps and beneficial nematodes.
There are also details of the Florida Registry of
Pesticide-Sensitive Persons which ensures that pesticide-sensitive people are
given prior notice of pesticide applications near their homes so that they may
take appropriate precautions against unwanted exposures.
The book has a wealth of information, quite practical and
understandable to a lay-reader and has a useful format that could be replicated
for many other local communities.
Common Sense Pest Control, Broward County
Department of Natural Resource Protection, 218 SW 1 Avenue, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
33301, US, August 1996, pp34.
[This
article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 35,
March 1997, page 15]