If you are not willing to learn the proper way to apply pest control you are putting yourself, your family and your environment in danger.
To avoid that, take the time to learn the facts and always practice the safety you will learn on this blog.
Chemical applications to control pests have a lot of fear by many people and it is important to respect that fact. Fear comes from a lack of education and experience. Not understanding what a chemical really is doing invokes an attitude that it must be something bad. But just like the fear of anti-biotic shots in the early 1950's, once people were educated on how it works they were no longer afraid.
As with the anti-biotic example, pricking someone epidermis and introducing the actual disease they were trying to fight has to be done correctly or it is extremely dangerous. So the process was not the problem but understanding how to use the process.
With this in mind; if you are going to apply chemicals yourself, you must be respectful of the dangers and make yourself as educated as possible.
This means you have to stop grabbing a bottle off the store shelf with the presumption you know how to use it. Chemical labels are the legal document stating the correct way to apply the chemical safely. These labels change every year and have to be approved by the EPA every year. If you do not read the label you are breaking the law and putting everyone including yourself and family at risk.
This label includes the safety equipment you must wear to be safe. How to protect people around you and how to protect the environment. Because it is a legal document it is difficult to read. Under the Pages section of this blog we will go over Label.
Here is a list of a few of the dangers in Pest Control:
1. The concentrate bottle you use to mix the product has the highest possibility of doing you harm and should be the time you have the most protective equipment on such as long sleeve shirt, rubber or vinyl gloves and eye protection.
2. Only mix the product as stated on the label. More is NOT better and with products such as weed control, more can actually make the plant reject the product.
3. With weed control, a surfactant called a spread sticker is essential to hold the chemical on the plant and will save you from having to over apply the chemical.
4. The application equipment must not leak or be compromised such as cracked hoses to insure you don't get the product on you or have a leak spray chemicals into your face when put under pressure.
5. Weather is key to not damaging non-target pests or plants. Wind is your first most important factor to consider. It should not be blowing over 10mph and that includes gusts. Heat is your next most important factor, after eighty degrees many chemicals will become volatile, evaporating and moving upward toward non-target areas. In the case of 2,4-d it has been documented to volatize and move up to 2 miles to kill a tree.
6. The Home Defense type product for spider control have a active ingredient that is very harmful to fish so it is very important that it is not applied where it can run off into the city drains that may lead to the rivers or lakes. This means more is not better but follow the label on how much you apply and where.
7. Be very careful when spraying spider barriers around children's toys, pets food and water, barbeque utensils and anything you will be touching afterwards.
8. Storage is extremely dangerous for children, anything you use in the spray process should be locked up where children can not access them. Even if you don't have children it must be locked up in the event a person wonders into your work area and can come in contact with those chemicals in any way. You are liable.
9. All clothing used during the time of application should be washed by themselves twice and if there has been concentrate contact the washer itself should be cleaned afterwards before putting any other clothing through that wash.
10. Disposal of the concentrate chemical container and the equipment used to apply the product must be triple washed in a safe location. If you have old chemical containers or containers that have lost their labels, do not put them into your dumpster but take them to the dump and declare them as chemicals for proper disposal.
11. If your spray is drifting over to your neighbor this is chemical trespass and against the law. Be aware when you are spraying that certain areas like between buildings or walking around the end of a house when spraying that there may be a wind tunnel affect that will move the product upward and into your face.
12. Always wear proper clothing that covers all the areas of your body the chemical could contact including rubber boots, long pants, long sleeved shirt, vinyl gloves and a face shield or safety glasses.
No comments:
Post a Comment