For most of us making the decision to not use a potentially deadly weedkiller seems pretty straightforward, however, our councils in New Zealand are still spraying it all over our sidewalks, in our parks and at the top of your driveway where it connects to the street.

Did you know that you can request to be added to the ‘no spray register’ to prevent this from happening?

Do you want a cancer causing carcinogen sprayed near your home? In your street? I don’t – the risks are too great!

Several years ago the World Health Organisation announced that the main ingredient (glyphosate) in Monsanto’s best-selling herbicide ‘Roundup’ is “probably” carcinogenic to humans. At the time Monsanto said that there was no scientific data to support the claim even though France’s highest court had ruled that Monsanto has lied about the safety of Roundup.

It’s never a surprise to hear from the companies that produce these ‘not good, but supposedly not bad’ products that there’s no scientific evidence proving them to be one or the other. Fast forward to 2018 and the first case to ever go to trial against Monsanto has been settled. The plaintiff Dewayne Johnson, a school groundskeeper who has terminal cancer, was awarded  US$39 million and the jury also fined Monsanto a further US$250 million as punishment.

The jury agreed that Monsanto’s glyphosate-based weedkillers, including Roundup contributed to Mr Johnson’s non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and that there SHOULD have been labels on these products warning of the potential health hazard.  His victory will no doubt set the precedent for many other similar cases, there are already 5,000 pending in the US alone.

The toxicity of these products has been hidden for far too long – everyone has the right to know the effect they have on health and the environment.

If you don’t want Roundup near your property there is something you can do.

In Auckland the council has a form you can fill out online to register, after you’ve done that a letter with their terms and conditions will be mailed out, you then have one month to date, sign and return it. After that looking after the frontage of your property is your responsibility as follows ….

“One of the conditions of being added to the No Spray List is that you must agree to take over the control of noxious weeds in your street frontage, including: the verge, footpath, the kerb and channel area of the carriageway.”

For more information and to sign up to the Auckland register go here NO SPRAY REGISTER.

For the rest of the country you need to google ‘no spray register’ and your local council.

If you’d like to avoid putting yourself in the ground alongside your beloved plants try making our Non-Toxic Weed Killer.

To compare check out this link for the ingredients in Roundup Herbicide and Roundup Super Concentrate Weed & Grass Killer.

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