Is There a Boom Or Bust Coming For Natural Pest Control?
The planet is going green. "Green" could be the color of environmental stress, the impetus which drives cutting edge technology, the buzzword of this conscious. Concern for the environment and man's impact on it is bringing a slew of new products to promote , and pest control isn't any exception. Environmentally friendly pest control services are growing in popularity, particularly in the commercial industry. Even eco-savvy residential consumers are requesting about natural alternatives to traditional pesticides, however, their ardor usually cools when faced with the 10 percent to 20% cost differential and more extended treatment times, sometimes several weeks.
The raising of America's environmental awareness, in conjunction with increasingly strict federal regulations regulating traditional chemical dyes, appears to be changing the pest control industry's attention to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) methods. IPM is regarded as just safer to your environment, but safer for people, pets and secondary scavengers such as owls. Of 378 pest management businesses surveyed in 2008 by Pest Control Technology magazine, also two thirds said that they offered IPM professional services of some kind.
Instead of lacing pest internet sites with a noxious cocktail of insecticides intended to kill, IPM is targeted on chemical avoidance techniques developed to keep insects out. While low- or no-toxicity products may also be utilised to encourage pests to package their bags, elimination and control efforts revolve around finding and eliminating the source of infestation: entrance points, attractants, harborage and food.
Particularly popular with schools and nursing homes charged with guarding the wellbeing of the nation's youngest and oldest citizens, people at greatest risk from hazardous chemicals, IPM is catching the eye of hotels, office buildings, apartment complexes and other industrial ventures, as well as low-income residential clients. Founded in equivalent portions by environmental concerns and health hazard fears, fascination with IPM is attracting a plethora of brand new environmentally-friendly pest control services and products -- both high- and - lowtech -- to market.
"possibly the most effective product out there is actually a door sweep," confided Tom Green, president of the Integrated Pest Management Institute of North America, a nonprofit organization that certifies green exterminating businesses. In an Associated Press interview published on MSNBC on the past April,'' Green explained,"A mouse could squeeze through a hole the size of a pencil diameter. So in the event you've acquired a quarter-inch gap under your doorway, so much as being a mouse is concerned, there isn't any door there whatsoever." Cock Roaches can slither via a one-eighth inch crevice.
IPM is"a better approach to pest control for the health of the home, the surroundings and the household," explained Cindy Mannes,'' spokeswoman for the National Pest Management Association, the 6.3 billion pest control industry's trade association, in exactly the exact same Associated Press story. However, because IPM is a comparatively recent addition to this pest control toolbox, Mannes cautioned that there's minimal industry consensus on the definition of services that are green.
In Order to produce industry standards for IPM providers and providers, the Integrated Pest Management Institute of the United States produced the Green Shield Certified (GSC) software. Identifying pest control services and products and businesses that eschew traditional pesticides in favor of environmentally-friendly control methods, GSC is supported by the EPA, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and HUD. IPM prefers mechanical, cultural and physical techniques to control pests, but might use bio-pesticides produced from naturally-occurring materials like animals, bacteria, plants and certain minerals.
Hazardous chemical sprays are giving way to new, sometimes unconventional, methods of treating pests. Others, like trained dogs who sniff out bed bugs, seem unnaturally lowtech, but employ innovative methods to reach benefits. Using those very same strategies to show dogs to sniff out termites and bed bugs is recognized as cutting edge.
Still another brand new pest control procedure is contraceptive. After bay area was jeopardized with mosquitoes carrying potentially life threatening West Nile Virus, bike messengers were hired to flee the town and drop packets of biological insecticide in to the town's 20,000 storm drains. A kind of contraception for mosquitoes, the newest method was considered safer compared to aerial spraying with the compound pyrethrum, the normal mosquito abatement procedure, as per a recent story posted within the National Public Radio website.
Of course , there are efforts to build a better mouse trap. The advanced Track & Trap system brings rats or mice to some food channel dusted with powder. Rodents leave a blacklight-visible course which allows pest control experts to secure entrance paths. Coming soon, NightWatch uses pheromone research to lure and trap bed bugs. In England, a sonic device made to repel rats and squirrels is being tested, and the aptly named Rat Zapper is purported to deliver a lethal shock using two AA batteries.
Alongside this influx of fresh environmentally friendly services and products rides a posse of regulations. Critics of contemporary EPA regulations restricting the sale of certain pest-killing chemicals accuse the government of limiting a homeowner's power to secure his residence. Even the EPA's 2004 banning of the compound diazinon for household usage a few years past removed a potent ant-killer from the homeowner's insect control arsenal. Similarly, 2008 EPA regulations forbidding the selling of small quantities of effective rodenticides, unless sold inside an enclosed trap, has stripped rodent-killing chemicals from the shelves of both hardware and home improvement stores, limiting the homeowner's capacity to protect his property and family from such disease-carrying pests.
Acting for people good, the authorities pesticide-control activities are especially aimed at protecting children. Based on a May 20, 2008 report on CNN on the web, a report conducted by the American Association of Poison Control Centers signaled that rat poison was in charge of almost 60,000 poisonings between 2001 and 2003, 250 of these causing serious injuries or death. National Wildlife Service analyzing in California found rodenticide residue in most animal tested.
Consumers are embracing the notion of pest control and environmentally friendly, cutting-edge pest control products and processes. Availability and government regulations are increasingly limiting consumers' self-treatment options, forcing them to show into pest control organizations to get respite in pest invasions. As this has established a viable option for industrial clients, few residential customers seem willing to pay high prices for newer, more more laborintensive green pest control services and products and even fewer are prepared to wait for the further week or two it may take the items to do the job. It's taking direction efforts on the part of pest control organizations to teach consumers from the long-term advantages of green and organic pest treatments.
Though the cold, hard truth is that when folks have a pest problem, they are interested gone and they want it gone now! If rats or mice are within their house ruining their property and threatening their family with disease, if termites or carpenter ants are eating their home equity, even if roaches are invading their toilet or should they're sharing their bed with bed bugs, consumer attention in ecological friendliness plummets. If folks call a pest control organization, the bottom line is that they need the fleas dead! Now! Pest control firms are standing up against the wave of consumer demand for prompt eradication by enhancing their natural and green pest control product offerings. These brand new organic products take the most responsible long-term approach to pest control; the one that protects the environment, children, and also our very own wellbeing. Some times it is alone moving from the wave of popular requirement, but true leadership, in the pest control industry, means embracing these new organic and natural technologies even when they are not popular with the user - yet.