Bristol's decision to trial vinegar as a weedkiller in place of glyphosate grabbed headline-writers' imaginations. But with a wide choice of proven chemical-free weed control strategies available, might this experiment be "set up to fail"?
EXCERPT: This is not what pesticide-free policies should look like. If anything smells fishy, it is the design of this trial. Has it - as Pesticide Action Network UK says - been "set up to fail"? Many other effective alternatives exist, as PAN-UK point out, and are already in use in other European and UK cities.
* Bristol's decision to trial vinegar as a weedkiller in place of glyphosate certainly grabbed headline-writers' imaginations, writes Harriet Williams. But with a wide choice of proven chemical-free weed control strategies available, might this experiment be "set up to fail"?
It's billed as an "eco-friendly alternative" to herbicides, but sadly it's not one that is tremendously effective for weed control in large public spaces.
So, has "vinegar-gate" left us any the wiser about what local authorities should be using for weed control?
Our experience in speaking to people in Bristol is that many people are simply not aware that glyphosate is being sprayed in roads, housing estates, parks, and play areas. When they do become aware, the vast majority of people support an outright ban on this practice, or much tighter restrictions on its use. In the latest results of our rolling online survey, only 8.6% of respondents agree that herbicide sprays are a 'wholly acceptable' means of weed control.
Another respondent said, "I saw a family out last autumn innocently gathering fallen leaves, and felt obliged to advise them to keep clear of the sprayed areas. No signs anywhere that this was going to be done."
* It applies only to a small area of the city, and leaves the door wide open to the return of glyphosate should the trial be deemed a failure.
* At the same time it invites failure by choosing vinegar ahead of more credible technologies for safer weed control.
* Worse still, large tracts of land will not receive any weed control at all as the Council's regular spray contractors down tools for the duration of the trial.
Thanks to "vinegar-gate", more people know that local authorities have a problem when it comes to dealing with plants in the wrong places. In Bristol and other urban areas, it can only be a matter of time before local politicians listen to public opinion and stop dousing our streets in unsafe chemicals.