The weedkiller glyphosate has failed to kill woodier plants, according to a councillor.
Green councillor Kerry Pickett made the claim as she asked whether Brighton and Hove City Council would use the herbicide – sold commercially as Roundup – again next year.
At Hove Town Hall on Thursday (24 October) Councillor Pickett said: “Glyphosate has now been sprayed throughout the city for most of the summer.
“As we know, its use is weather dependent and it cannot be sprayed when it is raining so, in light of our climate-changing weather patterns that will only get worse and with the fact that it has failed to kill the woodier stemmed plants, as initially planned, does the council intend to repeat this process again next year?”
She also asked whether residents could opt for their street to be removed from the spraying regime which was reintroduced in the summer after a five-year break.
Labour cabinet member Tim Rowkins said that the rain had “accelerated” weed growth and delayed wider use of the “controlled droplet” treatment which would be reviewed.
Councillor Rowkins said: “I’m keen on it (the opt out) and I’m keen to explore anything as long as it can give us confidence the problem will be maintained to the satisfaction of residents.”
Councillors voted to ban the use of glyphosate spraying in 2019, with the policy achieving cross-party support.
However, rather than phasing out the weedkiller, council workers stopped spraying altogether which resulted in an overgrowth of weeds on pavements and roadsides across Brighton and Hove.
Despite efforts to recruit workers to remove the weeds manually and experiments with different methods, none proved successful.
“Rain had “accelerated” weed growth” you really couldn’t make it up. The Labour council only introduced this policy as a political statement after all the noise they made about their “war on weeds’ before the election. Their plan was never going to be the answer. Yes weeds can be a problem, yes they need to be tackled where they impact on pedestrians, but this was never the answer.
As has been said all along, they really need to focus on problem weeds in problem areas, rather than this ridiculous droplet method using this poisonous and toxic liquid which has huge question marks over safety and environmental risks to wildlife.
BTW – did we ever get a clear answer as to why the ONLY ward in the city that didn’t use this method was Councillor Tim Rowkins’? Is it coincidental that it followed heavy lobbying from residents in his ward and he recognised his seat may be at risk if it was used there – who knows! Call me cynical, but it looked like a big dose of NIMBYism that every other part of the city had it used somewhere in the council’s roll out plans.
When the council set set out their plans they said it would cost £266,000 per year and £35,000 in equipment. What a shocking waste of taxpayers’ money for something that has essentially been a failure and not acheived what the council said it would.
They could have employed 10 full time staff on £30K a year to (also better for local economy) to manually weed and tackle problem areas – that would be much better than paying a company over quarter of a million so we can put poison on our streets.
10 extra staff would be pointless and make no visible difference. the main failing of the weed killer was the incredibly shoddy job done bi the contractors on the second application. even with the limited success of the weed killer it has tackled large areas more effectively than 10 people weeding manually or with strimmers or weed rippers.
But it’s been a shoddy job that this year that hasn’t worked as expected. The councillor refers to rain, and that was something people arguing against the proposal pointed out before the gyphosate decision was made – but the Labour administration ignored that point.
You’ve no evidence that manual removal wouldn’t be better option. I plucked a figure out of the air based on equivalent amount of money, but realistically it’s seasonal work, so you could have 20 people working full time on manual week removal, and it would also mean a toxic substance that kills bees, birds and other wildlife (as well as possibly carcinogenic) isn’t used in the city.
20 extra staff would possibly make some small impact ignoring the difficulty in employing seasonal staff while i admit i can not provide u with evidence on a city wide scale. the areas i have worked in manually removing weeds since the weed killer ban have only grown worse with weeds growing back in around 2 to 3 weeks with any method of manual removal used. even the substandard job of the contractors has been an improvement. i have no cares about how the job is done just that it is so cant comment on any of the environmental issues that u feel so strongly about.
Glyphosate is only toxic to plants – otherwise it wouldn’t kill them. Like all chemicals, it is perfectly safe if usage instructions are followed.
It is absorbed through leaves, and for woody plants (especially those weeds that were left to grow for many years‽) multiple applications will be required and manual removal of the stems may be needed.
Glyphosate is still legal to buy and use in the UK, the EU, and in the US.
Please stop spreading the same scaremongering misinformation that the Green Party (working with Brighton based Pesticide Action Network UK) spouted in 2018 via then councillor Tom Druitt.
But good to see all the party faithful coming to the defence of Green councillor Kerry Pickett.
It’s “poisonous and toxic” to plants, which is the entire point of herbicides, but if you think it’s dangerous to humans and the environment, you should stop getting your ‘science’ from memes and tabloids. Perhaps without such widespread ignorance and misinformation spreading, it wouldn’t have been banned by the council in the first place and it would be getting applied properly now and we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place.
Unless the “opt out” means the residents of that street are now responsible for removing all the weeds then it’s not really an option.
As has been said time and time again if there are no weeds on a particular street when the sprayers are visiting they won’t be anything to spray.
I’m not aware of any spraying having been done in the road where I live in Patcham. I clear the weeds from the pavement and gutter, using a hoe, in front of my house and that of my neighbour. It only takes a few minutes and I’ve only felt the need to do it twice this year. Directly oppposite me the weeds are 2 feet high in the pavement while the gutter, and drain grill, are full of grass and weeds. Some other people in the road clear the weeds themselves, but many don’t, so maybe someone has decided that action from the council workers is not needed as the weeds have only partly been allowed to take over.
Perhaps contact your councillor to see why not?
Portslade was in a terrible state and one of the first to be sprayed and it is now looking a lot better.
It’s perfectly safe to use and residents that object should get together and do a bit of weeding themselves, I’ve used this weedkiller for a long time and if used properly is harmless. The idea of 10 men weeding manually is ridiculous, it would need nearer to 100.
Not good for council tax payers.
Well said, i keep the area around my property clear its quite easy to do. Imagine if the people that are moaning actually use the time to clear weeds around where they live. If the area is clear of weeds the council simply won’t use the weedkiller there so best for both parties.
The US EPA considers glyphosate as “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.” The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A).” (same as red meat). EPA asserts that there is no convincing evidence that “glyphosate induces mutations in vivo via the oral route.” IARC concludes there is “strong evidence” that exposure to glyphosate is genotoxic through at least two mechanisms known to be associated with human carcinogens (DNA damage, oxidative stress). Why and how did EPA and IARC reach such different conclusions? EPA and IARC reached diametrically opposed conclusions on glyphosate genotoxicity for three primary reasons: (1) in the core tables compiled by EPA and IARC, the EPA relied mostly on registrant-commissioned, unpublished regulatory studies, 99% of which were negative, while IARC relied mostly on peer-reviewed studies of which 70% were positive (83 of 118); (2) EPA’s evaluation was largely based on data from studies on technical glyphosate, whereas IARC’s review placed heavy weight on the results of formulated GBH and AMPA assays; (3) EPA’s evaluation was focused on typical, general population dietary exposures assuming legal, food-crop uses, and did not take into account, nor address generally higher occupational exposures and risks. IARC’s assessment encompassed data from typical dietary, occupational, and elevated exposure scenarios. More research is needed on real-world exposures to the chemicals within formulated GBHs and the biological fate and consequences of such exposures.
Benbrook, C.M. How did the US EPA and IARC reach diametrically opposed conclusions on the genotoxicity of glyphosate-based herbicides?. Environ Sci Eur 31, 2 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12302-018-0184-7
“The weedkiller glyphosate has failed to kill woodier plants”…..well thats because they were left to develop into plants from weeds…… absolute clowns!