The planet is going green. “Green” is Accurate Termite and Pest Control of environmental concern, the impetus that drives cutting-edge technology, the buzz word of the socially conscious. Concern for the atmosphere and man’s influence on it is bringing a slew of new merchandise to marketplace, and pest control is no exception. Environmentally-friendly pest manage services are expanding in popularity, especially in the commercial sector. Even eco-savvy residential consumers are asking about organic options to traditional pesticides, but their ardor usually cools when confronted with the ten% to 20% expense differential and lengthier remedy times, occasionally many weeks.
The raising of America’s environmental consciousness, coupled with increasingly stringent federal regulations governing traditional chemical pesticides, seems to be shifting the pest handle industry’s focus to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approaches. IPM is viewed as not only safer for the environment, but safer for people, pets and secondary scavengers such as owls. Of 378 pest management providers surveyed in 2008 by Pest Manage Technology magazine, two-thirds mentioned they provided IPM services of some sort.
Rather of lacing pest web-sites with a poisonous cocktail of highly effective insecticides made to kill, IPM focuses on environmentally-friendly prevention strategies developed to preserve pests out. Although low- or no-toxicity products could also be used to encourage pests to pack their bags, elimination and manage efforts concentrate on obtaining and eliminating the causes of infestation: entry points, attractants, harborage and meals.
Particularly well-liked with schools and nursing residences charged with guarding the overall health of the nation’s youngest and oldest citizens, those at greatest risk from hazardous chemical compounds, IPM is catching the focus of hotels, office buildings, apartment complexes and other industrial enterprises, as effectively as eco-conscious residential prospects. Driven in equal components by environmental concerns and well being hazard fears, interest in IPM is bringing a host of new environmentally-friendly pest management goods — each higher- and low-tech — to market.
“In all probability the finest product out there is a door sweep,” confided Tom Green, president of the Integrated Pest Management Institute of North America, a non-profit organization that certifies green exterminating businesses. In an Connected Press interview posted on MSNBC on the internet last April, Green explained, “A mouse can squeeze by means of a hole the size of a pencil diameter. So if you have got a quarter-inch gap underneath your door, as far as a mouse is concerned, there’s no door there at all.” Cockroaches can slither by means of a 1-eighth inch crevice.
IPM is “a far better method to pest manage for the overall health of the dwelling, the atmosphere and the household,” stated Cindy Mannes, spokeswoman for the National Pest Management Association, the $six.three billion pest control industry’s trade association, in the same Linked Press story. Nonetheless, for the reason that IPM is a reasonably new addition to the pest handle arsenal, Mannes cautioned that there is small market consensus on the definition of green solutions.
In an work to make market requirements for IPM services and providers, the Integrated Pest Management Institute of North America developed the Green Shield Certified (GSC) system. Identifying pest control goods and corporations that eschew traditional pesticides in favor of environmentally-friendly manage techniques, GSC is endorsed by the EPA, Organic Sources Defense Council (NRDC) and HUD. IPM favors mechanical, physical and cultural procedures to manage pests, but could use bio-pesticides derived from naturally-occurring components such as animals, plants, bacteria and specific minerals.
Toxic chemical sprays are giving way to new, often unconventional, strategies of treating pests. Some are ultra higher-tech like the rapid-freeze Cryonite approach for eliminating bed bugs. Other folks, like educated dogs that sniff out bed bugs, look decidedly low-tech, but employ state-of-the-art procedures to achieve outcomes. For instance, farmers have utilized dogs’ sensitive noses to sniff out issue pests for centuries but education dogs to sniff out explosives and drugs is a somewhat recent improvement. Utilizing these identical procedures to teach dogs to sniff out termites and bed bugs is regarded as cutting-edge.
One more new pest handle method is birth control. When San Francisco was threatened by mosquitoes carrying potentially life-threatening West Nile Virus, bicycle messengers had been hired to cruise the city and drop packets of biological insecticide into the city’s 20,000 storm drains. A kind of birth manage for mosquitoes, the new method was deemed safer than aerial spraying with the chemical pyrethrum, the typical mosquito abatement procedure, according to a recent story posted on the National Public Radio website.
Naturally, there are efforts underway to make a improved mousetrap. The revolutionary Track & Trap method attracts mice or rats to a meals station dusted with fluorescent powder. Rodents leave a blacklight-visible trail that allows pest handle authorities to seal entry paths. Coming soon, NightWatch utilizes pheromone analysis to lure and trap bed bugs. In England, a sonic device created to repel rats and squirrels is being tested, and the aptly named Rat Zapper is purported to provide a lethal shock utilizing just two AA batteries.
Alongside this influx of new environmentally-friendly merchandise rides a posse of federal regulations. Critics of recent EPA regulations restricting the sale of specific pest-killing chemical substances accuse the government of unfairly limiting a homeowner’s capability to defend his property. The EPA’s 2004 banning of the chemical diazinon for household use a couple of years ago removed a potent ant-killer from the homeowner’s pest control arsenal. Similarly, 2008 EPA regulations prohibiting the sale of smaller quantities of successful rodenticides, unless sold inside an enclosed trap, has stripped rodent-killing chemical compounds from the shelves of hardware and home improvement shops, limiting the homeowner’s potential to guard his home and family members from these disease-carrying pests.
Acting for the public good, the government’s pesticide-handle actions are especially aimed at guarding youngsters. According to a Could 20, 2008 report on CNN on the web, a study carried out by the American Association of Poison Manage Centers indicated that rat poison was accountable for almost 60,000 poisonings in between 2001 and 2003, 250 of them resulting in really serious injuries or death. National Wildlife Service testing in California discovered rodenticide residue in every single animal tested.
Consumers are embracing the concept of natural pest handle and environmentally-friendly, cutting-edge pest management solutions and methods. Availability and government regulations are increasingly limiting consumers’ self-remedy choices, forcing them to turn to experienced pest handle companies for relief from pest invasions. Whilst this has proved a viable option for industrial prospects, couple of residential customers appear prepared to spend greater rates for newer, a lot more labor-intensive green pest manage solutions and even fewer are prepared to wait the additional week or two it may perhaps take these solutions to work. It is taking leadership efforts on the portion of pest manage firms to educate customers in the long term advantages of green and all-natural pest treatments.
Even although the cold, hard truth is that when individuals have a pest difficulty, they want it gone and they want it gone now! If rats or mice are in their residence destroying their home and threatening their household with illness, if termites or carpenter ants are eating away their residence equity, if roaches are invading their kitchen or if they’re sharing their bed with bed bugs, consumer interest in environmental friendliness plummets. When persons call a pest handle corporation, the bottom line is that they want the pests dead! Now! Pest handle firms are standing up against the tide of consumer demand for instant eradication by enhancing their natural and green pest handle product offerings. These new organic merchandise take the most accountable long term approach to pest manage 1 that protects our environment, young children, and our personal wellness. From time to time it is lonely moving against the tide of well known demand, but true leadership, in the pest manage industry, means embracing these new organic and all-natural technologies even when they are not well-liked with the customer – however.