With the rise of suburbia since World War II, Americans have strived for homes with a two-car garage and a beautiful lawn where the kids can play and the pests can roam. Chemical lawn treatments have become a booming business, as homeowners use much heavier concentrations of chemicals than even farms. But many people are awakening to the dangerous implications of dousing our lawns and yards with a steady stream of toxic poisons.
Chemical use on our lawns and gardens poses health risks to our children, pets and wildlife, and can lead to the contamination of our drinking water. It also strips the land of its natural vitality.
There are an estimated 20 million acres of lawn in the United States, and some 600 trillion grass plants.
According to the Earth Works Group, homeowners use up to 10 times more toxic chemicals per acre than farmers. The average household uses five to 10 pounds of pesticides per lawn each year, for a total of 25 to 50 million pounds nationwide.
If even 10 percent of homeowners began using organic techniques, it would remove 2.5 to 5 million pounds of toxic chemicals from the environment per year.
Ninety percent of all pesticides (including 32 out of the 34 most widely used lawn care chemicals) registered by the EPA are lacking one or more health and safety tests.
Of the 40 pesticides that comprise more than 95 percent of the chemicals used by commercial lawn-care firms, 12 are suspected carcinogens, 21 have been shown to cause long-term health effects in lab animals or humans, and 20 have been shown to cause short-range damage to human central nervous systems.
When pesticides are applied to the land, a certain amount may end up in streams and rivers. In certain settings—for example, sandy soil over a groundwater source near the surface—pesticides can leach down through the soil to the ground water.
The Washington State University/King County Cooperative Extension warns that Puget Sound is in trouble. While there are many factors, including pollution from factories and municipal sewage systems, one of the causes is the use of chemicals on the lawns and gardens of thousands of homes. Runoff from these yards often trickles into the Sound.
The EPA found that 47 percent of households with children under the age of 5 stored at least one pesticide within reach of children—less than four feet off the ground and not locked in a cabinet.
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