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Do you love the look of a perfectly manicured, lush green lawn? Lawns are the hallmark of homeownership, they are the most grown crop in the U.S., and they are not one that anyone can eat; their primary purpose is to make us look and feel good about ourselves. To have a well maintained lawn is a sign to others that you have the time and/or money to support this attraction, it tells others you are a good neighbor. As a result there is a significant industry that exists around lawn care and management. It is common for people to use herbicides, pesticides, and insecticides to treat their lawns. Some people have a lawn service that shows up every couple weeks to keep their lawns looking great, without even knowing what chemicals are being used to achieve this. Not to mention how these chemicals may be impacting their health, their children, pets, and the environment.
Rather than the precautionary approach implemented by countries like Germany and Denmark, where products are required to be proven safe before approval, the United States uses an evidence-based approach. Meaning, products can remain on the market, even if exposure is likely to pose a threat to human health. Until a direct link can be determined between a chemical and negative consequences for human health, citizens are continually and unknowingly exposed to toxic chemicals.
Roundup
Monsanto has been in the news a lot lately and recently reached a $10 billion settlement over claims it's signature herbicide Roundup causes cancer in people. The settlement will be distributed to nearly 100,000 clients who were stricken with cancer after prolonged use of the toxic weedkiller.
Roundup's main ingredient Glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in the world, was classified in 2015 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as “probably carcinogenic” to people. In 2017, glyphosate was also listed by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment as a chemical known to the state to cause cancer.
Glyphosate is mostly applied to corn, soybean and wheat crops, but is increasingly sprayed just before harvest on oats, chickpeas and other crops as a drying agent, or desiccant, to speed the harvest. The pre-harvest use is why many oat-based cereals are contaminated with glyphosate.
Three separate rounds of laboratory tests commissioned by EWG in 2018 and 2019 found glyphosate in nearly every sample of popular oat-based cereals and other foods marketed to children. The contaminated brands included cereals and breakfast bars made by General Mills and Quaker.
Pesticide drift
Unfortunately even if you decide not to treat your lawn, one of the most common routes of exposure is through "Pesticide drift". Chemicals from heavily sprayed places like Country Clubs, golf courses, and parks can drift for miles, and even hundreds of miles from farmlands. Drift can occur during or after application, when pesticide particles and/or vapors become airborne and leave the application site. They can land on surfaces such as outdoor furniture, walls, doors, windows, and residential lawns. People come in contact with these chemicals while out and about and end up tracking them into your home. In fact, 80% of pesticide exposure is tracked in on shoes. This is one of the many reasons we have a "no shoes" policy in our home. This is especially important for households with young children who spend much, if not all, of their time crawling on the floor where they can come into contact with residues that can remain in carpeting and on floor surfaces for years. Likewise, removing clothing that has come into contact with treated turf can help prevent residual accumulation on household surfaces.
Unavoidable exposure
If you visit a golf course, country club, or park, not only are your feet, ankles, and legs exposed to a tremendous amount of chemicals, but you are also breathing these toxins in. Even if you don't visit a park or country club, you get daily exposure from your neighbors treating their lawns.
If you have been following my blog, you know that I follow Anthony William "Medical Medium". He says "Exposure to herbicides, insecticides and other pesticides can speed up any degenerative disease. They denature and damage our cells in critical places such as our brain and stay deeply embedded in our organs and continue to wreak havoc for years." Luckily he offers ways to cleanse the body of these unavoidable poisons in his book "Cleanse To Heal". I highly recommend reading it and following his cleanses.
Pesticides create stronger bugs
By far, one of the most damaging to the environment and one of the the biggest threats to our health comes from pesticides. We now know that pesticides aren't as effective as claimed and that they cause more harm than good. Pesticides tend to create a vicious circle. The more they are used, the more they are needed. The more pesticides are being used, the more chemicals are needed to get the job done. As pesticides get more toxic, they are also getting less effective at reducing the pest problem. Pesticides aid pests in developing resistance and create stronger bugs. When a field or garden is sprayed a few insects who are stronger and more genetically advanced are likely to survive. These survivors mate and create offspring which are more resistant to pesticides. The lifecycle of an insect is so short, each generation is more resistant than the last, it doesn't take long for a super bug to develop. The only recourse is to create a stronger more toxic pesticide. Many insects around today are resistant to any insecticide.
The effect on the environment
Counting farmers and exterminators, about a billion pounds of pesticides are used annually in the United States to eliminate weeds and insects, according to a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.
The overuse of chemicals or inorganic fertilizers has serious consequences including the leaching of nitrates into the groundwater supply and the introduction of certain contaminants, including cadmium, into the soils. Fertilizers runoff into ponds, lakes and streams over stimulates algae growth, suffocating other aquatic plants, invertebrates and fish.
Of 30 commonly used lawn pesticides, 16 are linked with cancer or carcinogenicity, 12 are linked with birth defects, 21 with reproductive effects, 25 with liver or kidney damage, 14 with neurotoxicity, and 17 with disruption of the endocrine (hormonal) system. Of those same 30 lawn pesticides, 19 are detected in groundwater, 20 have the ability to leach into drinking water sources, 30 are toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms vital to our ecosystem, 29 are toxic to bees, 14 are toxic to mammals, and 22 are toxic to birds, according to Beyond Pesticides.
When chemicals designed to kill are introduced into delicately balanced ecosystems they can set damage in motion. Pesticides wreak havoc on the environment, threatening biodiversity and weakening the natural systems human survival depends on. Seven in ten biologists believe that mass extinction poses an even greater threat to humanity than the global warming which contributes to it.
- Honeybee populations are plummeting nationwide
- Male frogs exposed to atrazine become females.
- Pesticides are implicated in dramatic bat die-offs
Without bees, say goodbye to almonds, peaches- even chocolate, 1/3 of the food we eat depends on bees for pollination. In 2006, when insects suddenly started dying off, scientists started looking for a cause. They are discovering that exposure to pesticides (perhaps along with other stressors) is a prime suspect.
Some pesticides seep through the soil and into ground water; others are washed by rain into creeks, rivers, and lakes where they can poison fish and other aquatic organisms. When lawn chemicals are applied improperly, they can run off into steams, contaminating our drinking water. Overapplication of any lawn chemical can result in runoff that carries toxic levels of chemicals or excessive nutrients into lakes, streams and ground water.
In California, the pesticides carbofuran (used on alfalfa, grapes and rice) and diazinon are responsible for the majority of bird kills, affecting many species of songbirds, waterfowl and raptors. Controlled studies have shown that when carbofuran is applied to crops, as many as 17 birds die for every five acres treated.
The use of lawn chemicals accounts for the majority of wildlife poisonings reported to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The effect on human health, especially children
Young children, as parents know love to put their hands in their mouth. They also crawl and play on floors, grass, or in places that may contain pesticides. Because pesticides are still in many places in our environment, a child's amount of exposure can add up quickly.
Pesticides are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency because most are carcinogens or suspected carcinogens, and are especially bad for children and pregnant women, according to studies. Young children are especially at risk from pesticides because their bodies and immune systems are still developing. Researchers are learning how vulnerable children's brains are to pesticides during fetal and early Childhood development. "These developmental processes can be easily disrupted by very small doses of toxic chemicals that would be virtually harmless to an adult."
Lawn chemicals have come under tremendous scrutiny in recent years and have been blamed for everything from poisoned wells to sickness in children and even death.
Several types of cancer, immuno-response deficiencies, neurological diseases, and birth defects have been associated with exposure to lawn chemicals. By releasing chemical toxins into the environment, air and water quality suffer, ultimately causing health problems.
Symptoms of inhaling lawn chemicals include
- nausea
- coughing
- headaches
- shortness of breath
- for asthmatic kids- it can trigger coughing fits and asthma attacks
Pesticides and fertilizers have been implicated in a wide range of physical and neurological symptoms in human beings as well as to serious symptoms in animals. If directly ingested, synthetic chemicals such as ammonium phosphate, potassium chloride and urea can cause vomiting and diarrhea. Studies have shown that these chemicals can linger in body tissue for years.
Golf courses
Higher levels of Chlorpyrifos, a popular pesticide used on golf courses, an assessment of 254 children measured significant levels of chlorpyrifos in maternal blood and found higher levels to be associated with delays in psychomotor, mental, attention, and pervasive development. A study in New York concluded a highly significant correlation between low birth weight and length, and cord plasma rates of diazinon and chlorpyrifos in newborns (Wyatt, 2004).
Repetitive daily exposure to Chlorpyrifos have had negative impacts on the female reproductive system, namely lower fertility, spontaneous abortion and stillbirths, and developmental defects. The American Academy of Pediatrics defines the risk to infant and children’s health and development from exposure to Chlorpyrifos as “unambiguous”
Glyphosate, the key ingredient in roundup, is also seen to have endocrine-disruptive potential, even at exposure levels considered to be nontoxic. Glyphosate-based herbicides damage DNA and have carcinogenic, mutagenic, and reprotoxic effects on human cells. Experiments conducted to assess the effects of Roundup on human embryonic and placental cells illustrated that a dose of Roundup as small as 0.01% resulted in a reduction of 19% of estrogen production, a necessary process for normal fetal development.
A golf course in Edgartown, Massachusetts, Vineyard Golf Club, is maintained without a single synthetic pesticide, herbicide, fertilizer, or other artificial chemical, making it one of the only 100% organic golf courses in America. Other golf courses across the country should be held to this standard so their members and neighbors are not exposed to harmful chemicals. Human health and the environment should be more important than unnaturally picturesque landscaping.
Traditional Golf Course
Vineyard Golf Club
The effect on pets
Continued pesticide use results in groundwater contamination, death and poisoning of domestic pets and livestock, loss of honeybees and other pollinators, deformed frogs, bird death and fishery losses are all at least partially the result of pesticide use.
According to the EPA "Even pets are at risk — studies show that the rates of lymphoma in pets of pesticide users are significantly higher than occurrences in the pets of non-chemical users. Several types of cancer, immuno-response deficiencies, neurological diseases, and birth defects have been associated with exposure to lawn chemicals. By releasing chemical toxins into the environment, air and water quality suffer, ultimately causing health problems."
Pets can also bring the chemicals back into your home on their fur, whether it is from your yard, or a neighbors, or a park.
Food for thought
It wasn’t until 2001 that the link between DDT and premature births and low birth weights in humans born in the 1950s and ’60s was discovered. The low amounts of DDT used for malaria control have been shown to cause miscarriage and premature birth, reduced sperm counts, inability to breastfeed and increases in infant deaths.
Post-DDT pesticides continue to be suspect in everything from cancer to mental retardation. Recently, an Australian toxicologist reported in the journal Science of the Total Environment that pesticides may be responsible for some of the intellectual development problems in children that were previously associated with lead.
How to reduce exposure
Focus on the things that are in your control.
- Have a no shoe policy in your home, remember 80% of pesticides exposure is tracked in on shoes.
- Change your clothes when you get home from golfing and take a shower
- If you use a lawn service, ask questions about what they are using on your lawn and opt for organic options over synthetic pesticides.
- Buy organic fruits and vegetables when possible
- Wash fruits and vegetables before eating
- You may not want to buy a home right next to a Country Club/golf course/park or any other heavily treated areas.
- Have your kids change clothes or rinse off after a visit to the park or other heavily treated areas.
- Wipe down your pets paws if you walk through a park or other area you know may be treated. The Norwex Pet Mitt would be perfect for this.
- Read "Cleanse To Heal"
- Wipe down outdoor furniture and outdoor kids play areas regularly- Try using the Norwex Envirocloth, all you need is water- no harsh chemicals.
DIY weed/grass killer recipe
1 gallon white vinegar
1 cup salt
1 tablespoon liquid dish soap
Combine ingredients in a spray bottle and treat weeds at the sunniest time of day for best results.
**Note- this will also kill grass so be sure to spray right at the root of the weed only.
