The planet is certainly going green. "Green" is the colour of environmental concern, the impetus that drives cutting-edge technology, the buzz word of the socially conscious. Concern for the environmental surroundings and man's impact onto it is bringing a slew of new services to advertise, and pest control is no exception. Environmentally-friendly pest control services are growing in popularity, particularly in the industry sector. Even eco-savvy residential customers are asking about natural alternatives to traditional pesticides, but their ardor often cools when met with the 10% to 20% cost differential and lengthier treatment times, sometimes several weeks.
The raising of America's environmental consciousness, in conjunction with increasingly stringent federal regulations governing traditional chemical pesticides, is apparently shifting the pest control industry's focus to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques. IPM is recognized as not just safer for the environmental surroundings, but safer for people, pets and secondary scavengers such as for instance owls. Of 378 pest management companies surveyed in 2008 by Pest Control Technology magazine, two-thirds said they offered IPM services of some sort.
Instead of lacing pest sites with a poisonous cocktail of powerful insecticides made to kill, IPM centers on environmentally-friendly prevention techniques designed to help keep pests out. While low- or no-toxicity products are often used to encourage pests to pack their bags, elimination and control efforts concentrate on finding and eliminating the causes of infestation: entry points, attractants, harborage and food.
Particularly well-liked by schools and nursing homes faced with guarding the fitness of the nation's youngest and oldest citizens, those at greatest risk from hazardous chemicals, IPM is catching the eye of hotels, office buildings, apartment complexes and other commercial enterprises, along with eco-conscious residential customers rat control san marcos. Driven in equal parts by environmental concerns and health hazard fears, fascination with IPM is bringing a number of new environmentally-friendly pest management products -- both high- and low-tech -- to market.
"Probably the best product out there is a home sweep," confided Tom Green, president of the Integrated Pest Management Institute of North America, a non-profit organization that certifies green exterminating companies. In a Associated Press interview posted on MSNBC online last April, Green explained, "A mouse can squeeze through a hole how big a pencil diameter. So if you've got a quarter-inch gap underneath your door, in terms of a mouse is concerned, there's no door there at all." Cockroaches can slither through a one-eighth inch crevice.
IPM is "an improved way of pest control for the health of the home, the environmental surroundings and the family," said Cindy Mannes, spokeswoman for the National Pest Management Association, the $6.3 billion pest control industry's trade association, in exactly the same Associated Press story. However, because IPM is really a relatively fresh addition to the pest control arsenal, Mannes cautioned that there surely is little industry consensus on the meaning of green services.
In an endeavor to create industry standards for IPM services and providers, the Integrated Pest Management Institute of North America developed the Green Shield Certified (GSC) program. Identifying pest control products and companies that eschew traditional pesticides in favor of environmentally-friendly control methods, GSC is endorsed by the EPA, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and HUD. IPM favors mechanical, physical and cultural methods to manage pests, but may use bio-pesticides derived from naturally-occurring materials such as for instance animals, plants, bacteria and certain minerals.
Toxic chemical sprays are giving method to new, sometimes unconventional, methods of treating pests. Some are ultra high-tech such as the quick-freeze Cryonite process for eliminating bed bugs. Others, like trained dogs that sniff out bed bugs, seem decidedly low-tech, but employ state-of-the-art methods to accomplish results. For instance, farmers have used dogs'sensitive noses to sniff out problem pests for centuries; but training dogs to sniff out explosives and drugs is really a relatively recent development. Using those same techniques to show dogs to sniff out termites and bed bugs is recognized as cutting-edge.
Another new pest control technique is birth control. When San Francisco was threatened by mosquitoes carrying potentially life-threatening West Nile Virus, bicycle messengers were hired to cruise the town and drop packets of biological insecticide into the city's 20,000 storm drains. Some sort of contraception for mosquitoes, the newest method was considered safer than aerial spraying with the chemical pyrethrum, the normal mosquito abatement procedure, in accordance with a current story posted on the National Public Radio website.
Naturally, you will find efforts underway to construct an improved mousetrap. The innovative Track & Trap system attracts mice or rats to a food station dusted with fluorescent powder. Rodents leave a blacklight-visible trail that allows pest control experts to seal entry paths. Coming soon, NightWatch uses pheromone research to lure and trap bed bugs. In England, a sonic device made to repel rats and squirrels will be tested, and the aptly named Rat Zapper is purported to provide a lethal shock using just two AA batteries.
Alongside this influx of new environmentally-friendly products rides a posse of federal regulations. Critics of recent EPA regulations restricting the sale of certain pest-killing chemicals accuse the government of unfairly limiting a homeowner's ability to guard 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 small quantities of effective rodenticides, unless sold inside a specific trap, has stripped rodent-killing chemicals from the shelves of hardware and home improvement stores, limiting the homeowner's ability to guard his property and family from these disease-carrying pests.
Acting for people good, the government's pesticide-control actions are particularly targeted at protecting children. According to a May 20, 2008 report on CNN online, a study conducted by the American Association of Poison Control Centers indicated that rat poison was responsible for almost 60,000 poisonings between 2001 and 2003, 250 of these resulting in serious injuries or death. National Wildlife Service testing in California found rodenticide residue in every animal tested.
Customers are embracing the notion of natural pest control and environmentally-friendly, cutting-edge pest management products and techniques. Availability and government regulations are increasingly limiting consumers'self-treatment options, forcing them to turn to professional pest control companies for relief from pest invasions. While it has proved a practical choice for commercial customers, few residential customers seem willing to pay higher charges for newer, more labor-intensive green pest control products and even fewer are willing to hold back the extra 14 days it could take these items to work. It is taking leadership efforts on the element of pest control companies to educate consumers in the long term advantages of green and natural pest treatments.
Even although cold, hard truth is that whenever individuals have a pest problem, they need it gone and they need it gone now! If rats or mice have been in their residence destroying their property and threatening their family with disease, if termites or carpenter ants are eating away their home equity, if roaches are invading their kitchen or if they're sharing their bed with bed bugs, consumer fascination with environmental friendliness plummets. When people call a pest control company, the underside line is that they need the pests dead! Now! Pest control firms are standing facing the tide of consumer demand for immediate eradication by enhancing their natural and green pest control product offerings. These new natural products take the absolute most responsible long term way of pest control; one which protects our environment, children, and our personal health. It is sometimes lonely moving from the tide of popular demand, but true leadership, in the pest control industry, means embracing these new organic and natural technologies even though they're not well-liked by the consumer - yet.
