Archived press release

Pesticide Industry Should Pay For Safe Disposal of Its Products

13 November 2003

A new scheme will be launched tomorrow (Friday 14th November) to encourage farmers to safely dispose of obsolete pesticides [1], farmers will have to pay to legally dispose of the products. Friends of the Earth is warning that passing the costs of disposal onto farmers, even at a discounted rate, may be a disincentive to safe disposal and considers that the pesticides industry should pay for the disposal of these products.

Following the withdrawal of pesticide products from the market this year as part of an EU-wide review (EU Directive 91/414) there may be significant quantities of obsolete stocks on farms. Many of the products have been withdrawn simply because the pesticide manufacturers did not want to meet the costs of putting the active ingredient through the review process rather than for environmental or health reasons. However the pesticides industry did actively support some highly hazardous pesticides such as atrazine which was recently banned by the EU review.

Friends of the Earth is calling for a significant increase in Government funding for research and development into safer alternatives to the most hazardous pesticides and changes to the regulatory process to ensure that non-chemical alternatives can reach UK farmers [2].

Friends of the Earth Pesticides Campaigner Sandra Bell said:

"If obsolete pesticides are not properly disposed of there will be a high risk of environmental damage, but the cost of safe disposal may be a deterrent to farmers. Why should farmers have to pay for a pesticide company's decision not to keep a product on the market or their failure to ensure that their products meet health and environmental standards? Negotiating a discount with waste disposal contractors is not enough; the pesticides industry should bear the cost of this disposal scheme."

The scheme is being promoted by the Voluntary Initiative which was set up in 2001 following an agreement by the pesticides industry, farming unions and Government that if the voluntary approach was effective a pesticides tax would not be introduced. Friends of the Earth sits on the Steering Group of the Voluntary Initiative but has criticized it for its failure to deliver on its objectives [3].

Notes

[1] Press Release from the Voluntary Initiative 13 November 2003

[2] `Breaking the Pesticides Chain' the alternatives to pesticides coming off the European Union market, Friends of the Earth and PAN-UK
www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/breaking_the_pesticide_chain.pdf (PDF format)

[3] Critique of the Voluntary Initiative available from Friends of the Earth.

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust