Comment
It came as quite a shock to said person, as he didn’t actually realise that it was within his organisation’s remit to do anything about such matters
not to keep glyphosate on the EU list of approved active substances. Surely, therefore, there must be some sort of policing involved in the use of chemicals in the sector in which we operate. However, have a search online to find anything specific about what you can and can’t do with regards to professional pesticides, and you will open a can of worms. I have spent many an hour following
website link after website link in order to try and find not only the root of legislation regarding the mis-selling and misuse of pesticides, but also who would enforce said legislation if it was brought to their attention. I have to say, I am not a bad researcher, and I certainly gave myself the time to delve, but the end product was painfully dissatisfactory. The numerous reference to the “codes of practice”, the “legislation” and the “guidelines”, without anybody getting to the crux of any actual enforceable laws and regulations, was infuriating. HSE’s website alone is like one giant unsolvable maze of links that take you nowhere near where you actually want to be. “Just give me the information I need!” my co-workers heard me shout at the screen for days on end. So, to the beginning of our quest to find
who could help us stop the mis-selling of these professional pesticides. We started with BASIS, as it is the authority renowned in the industry for their “independent standards setting and auditing organisation for the pesticide, fertiliser and allied industries”. It would make sense that they would know what to do. They emailed us back a few days later to say “thank you for bringing it to our attention”, and they would forward the link to CRD for investigation. We were told we would be kept informed. The CRD, or Chemical Regulatory
Directorate, is now housed, for administrative purposes, within the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The CRD is “responsible for the regulation of biocides, pesticides, detergents, chemicals covered by REACH, and for compliance with the Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) Regulation.” So, we all agreed that they would be the people to sort this out. Over two weeks later, however, and the
”
pesticides were still being sold for domestic use. Cue an email from our Operations Director back to BASIS. We also took the complaints process into our own hands again, and raised our concern with HSE, using their contact sheet. HSE, you will notice, is the first website on the list when you type anything to do with pesticides into Google. They are “tasked by the Government to safeguard the health, safety and welfare of those in employment and those who may be affected by work activity”. This time, we received a prompt reply: “Your enquiry does not fall within HSE’s enforcement remit, so we are unable to comment on the matters you raise”. However, they did tell us that our local Trading Standards Officer would be able to assist us. So, off to the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB)
website we did go to report the company, and then we waited to see whether Trading Standards would take on the case. The CAB service is “responsible for providing consumers in the UK with a telephone and online service offering information and advice on consumer civil issues”, and they are the route to take when getting in touch with Trading Standards.
“ Later that week, we spoke to the Trading
Standards Officer that operated in the area where the company selling the pesticides was registered. He admitted that he was unclear as to the regulatory controls that apply to the products, and also that he hadn’t actually known, until this enquiry, that it fell within his remit to do anything about it. So, to aid him, we sent him information on the professional pesticides being mis-sold on the website for domestic use, as well as the rules, as we know them, with regards to selling pesticides and the potential consequences for misuse. We also asked BASIS to provide some information to help the officer with the investigation. So it was left for over two months with
Trading Standards, whilst we continued to speak to BASIS, who said they would bring the case up in a meeting with CRD. We also contacted the Amenity Forum, “the leading organisation within the UK amenity sector for promoting safe and environmentally friendly use of pesticides”. They, in turn, contacted HSE, who, I believe, took it more seriously this time and started to look into it. Meanwhile, we received no feedback from
He admitted that he was unclear as to the regulatory controls that apply to the products, and also that he hadn’t actually known, until this enquiry, that it fell within his remit to do anything about it
our Trading Standards Officer, until nine weeks after we first got in touch. He again stated that he was “personally unclear as to the regulatory controls that apply to these products” and said that he had sought HSE’s advice two months before and had not received a response. Very helpfully, he chased them up and received a reply three days later. The reply sparked quite a lot of debate here, especially as Trading Standards then left us to it. The main concern we had with the reply
was the apparent lack of responsibility from anyone, save the individual who ends up with the product. “Sellers are not required to check the actual certificate that the purchaser (or intended user) holds, but they should remind customers of their obligations, by whatever means they feel is appropriate”. I could have bought the pesticides in
question from the website without a licence, and all I had to do was tick a box saying that I had a spraying certificate. Which leads us to the question, if the individual who buys the
PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2016 I 43
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156