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Weed killers containing Glyphosate

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Plot 18:
Best to move your strawberry bed away from your boundaries so you don't have to worry about it,  would be my advice tbh.

If he is actually spraying over your plot, then you have the right to report him, to make sure he applies the stuff correctly, however, you don't have the right to tell him that he cannot spray at all, sorry.

I think your best bet would be to look for a plot/site somewhere else that better suits your ideals, as you feel so strongly about it.

squeezyjohn:
My point of view hasn't really changed since the last time I posted in the thread - and I don't see the discussion going anywhere apart from having the potential to get heated which isn't really why I'm on this forum!

I have seen the news, but it's only really one legal case in America - and not new research.

My allotment neighbour who uses Roundup has begun using a far better technique to avoid drift and contamination.  He's moved from a pressure sprayer to a hand trigger spray gun, and now he puts a milk carton with the bottom cut off over target plants and squirts through the top.  I'm pretty confident that this is a fairly safe and drift free method of using glyphosate.

Obelixx:
That sounds like a careful approach but surely as time consuming and labour intensive as just pulling or hoeing the offenders.

Beersmith:
It is 2018, and we live in a world of science and technology that would have been unimaginable even when I was a boy. Technology has advanced more in the last three decades than in the previous three thousand years. And it presents us all with challenging decisions, because we have seen numerous examples where technology has got it wrong.

From asbestos in buildings to thalidomide, lead in petrol to contaminated blood products, phthalates in plastics to mercury build up in fish when technology is used without safeguards or any respect for the environment and science is done badly the effects for us all can be pretty apalling.

But equally science can be brilliant and hugely beneficial. The benefits of antibiotics and vaccination for mankind overall have been huge notwithstanding a few very rare bad reactions. From cochlea implants to CAT scans, computers to mobile phones, materials like carbon fibre to producing your own electricity from solar panels it is integral to the way we live today and mainly beneficial.

Now generally, we should rely on science and here I mean good science reported in the best journals and subject to careful and rigorous peer review. But the ordinary man in the street does not have access to this material. Even if we did it is unlikely we would understand it. Instead we have to rely on secondary reports often by journalists who have barely a clue about science, and worse numerous sources that have vested financial interests but equally bad quite a lot of internet sources that are simply crackpot. It is hugely difficult to know which sources to trust.

But for all the current uncertainty about the safety of glyphosate one thing is absolutely certain, longer term science will arrive at the truth. Nothing is more certain. Science probes, it advances, it makes new findings and it constantly re-examines. A topic as important and contentious as this will continue to attract close scrutiny until it is eventually resolved.

nodig:
I work on the basis that if there was a complete ban on Glysophate in 2018 and a graph of death rates 10 years before the ban and 10 years after were presented before a team of statistical experts in 2028 I'll bet not one of them would be able to spot a significant change dating from 2018.  Of course you will always have the let's ban it just in case it harms people, but then again when trains were first introduced the naysayers believed that people would melt at those high speeds and ladies uteruses would fly out.  luckily most people are pragmatic, and try to ignore the greeny bandwagoners, and embrace modern advances that makes life so much more enjoyable.

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