Friends of the Earth and the Pesticides Action Network have given only a lukewarm welcome to the withdrawal from the market today of 320 pesticides from farming and garden products across the EU [1].

In the UK only 45 of the 320 banned pesticides were legally approved before today's deadline but farmers are still concerned about the reduction in products available to them. Although Friends of the Earth and PAN-UK welcome the withdrawal of these pesticides from the market they say that overall the review has failed consumers and farmers. Many risky pesticides have been given the green light and safer alternatives have not been found for those products being banned.

Friends of the Earth and PAN UK released a new report earlier this week [2] criticizing the UK Government for failing to ensure that alternative means of pest management are available to farmers. Instead of supporting safer alternatives, the UK Government lobbied to keep pesticides, despite them being subject to the ban for health or environmental reasons, on the market until 2007 because they were considered to be of `Essential Uses' to farmers [3]. Many other pesticides are being withdrawn for economic rather than safety reasons because the manufacturing company did not want to pay for the product to go through the review process.

The ban will effect about 80 garden products and should have made gardeners more confident that the weed and bug killers they use in the garden are safe. But amazingly the EU process has cleared some pesticides for continued sale despite strong evidence that they may cause harm to human health or the environment. For example the herbicide 2,4-D which is an active ingredient in over 100 garden products, mainly lawn weedkillers can continue to be used even though there is evidence that it is a hormone disrupter and that it may be associated with birth defects.

Sale of the banned garden products will be illegal from today and their use will be illegal from the end of December so gardeners will need to clear out their garden sheds. But many local authorities are ill-equipped to dispose of toxic pesticide waste leaving gardeners with inadequate options for disposal. If pesticides are simply thrown in bins they will end up in landfill sites and will end up contaminating our environment. New government legislation is urgently needed to ensure these banned products are properly disposed of to protect our environment.

In addition to pesticides in garden products, some pesticides which occur regularly in our food and have known health risks have been approved by the EU process including the suspected hormone disrupter iprodione [4].

Friends of the Earth Pesticides campaigner Sandra Bell said

"The banning of so many pesticides should have been good news for consumers and the environment. But instead farmers and gardeners alike are stuck with risky chemical products. The UK government must do more to make safer crop protection methods available to farmers. And companies making products for gardeners should develop safer alternatives."

David Buffin, for PAN UK said

"There needs to be a significant increase in funding for research and development of alternatives to these pesticides coming off the UK market. The Government should set up a publicly funded farmer-advice service geared at giving practical advice about progressive reduction of pesticide use."

Friends of the Earth and PAN UK are calling on the Government to take a much more proactive approach to finding safer alternatives to chemical pesticides. They say this will require a radical shakeup of the Pesticides Safety Directorate and a significant increase in funding for appropriate research and development. An independent advisory service for farmers would ensure that they get the benefits of such research. These measures could be part funded by a tax on pesticide products.

Notes

[1] Friends of the Earth and the Pesticides Action Network UK, Breaking the Pesticide Chain, The alternatives to pesticides coming off the EU market, July 2003. See: www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/breaking_the_pesticide_chain.pdf (PDF†)

[2] Thursday 24th July is the last day on which the pesticides targeted for withdrawal can be sold in the EU.

[3] For example aldicarb, which is used to kill insects and nematodes on crops has been granted `essential use' status for a range of crops including potatoes in the UK. It is highly toxic and is classified by the World Health Organisation as "extremely hazardous". It works on the nervous system in a similar way to organophosphates. Residues of aldicarb have been found in potatoes at levels exceeding safety levels for young children.

[4] Iprodione has been cleared in the review for continued use in all EU countries. Iprodione is a suspected carcinogen, potential groundwater contaminant, and suspected hormone disrupter and turns up regularly as a residue in food including recently in carrots.

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