People in 18 countries across Europe have been found to have traces of the weed killer glyphosate in their urine, a study by Friends of the Earth Europe has found. I’ve used glyphosate all my working life and used it just last week to control grass and perennial weeds.
Glyphosate is widely used in farming and horticulture and to be honest there’s very little else that can control weeds in the same way. Roundup, made by Monsanto, is the most popular product containing glyphosate. Monsanto maintain that glyphosate is safe but a number of studies – like this one – have linked glyphosate to birth defects and cancer.
Should we be worried?
Well, all the time there’s an element of doubt about a product then we must be concerned. But how do we deal with this? Chemicals are all around us. If we can ingest glyphosate then we can ingest or inhale many other chemicals which may have potentially damaging side-effects. I cannot see contractors or farmers stop using glyphosate any time soon and I cannot see the consumer being selective about the foods they buy….no one would known what’s contaminated for a start.
70% of those tested in Great Britain were found with glyphosate in their bodies so it’s getting into the food chain somewhere and it’s very likely that there are multiple sources.
What about you, are you concerned?
After starting my garden maintenance and landscaping business in 1984 and running it for 21 years I decided I needed a change of direction (probably a mid life crisis, no seriously! :-0) Together with my family, wife Donna, Son Henry and Daughter Fleur (not forgetting Hector the Black Labrador) I moved to France in search of an old farmhouse to renovate. In the interim period whilst waiting for the contract to go through I started writing a blog. Initially just to keep a diary for family and friends to keep up with our progress if they wished but then it occurred to me that there isn’t a real time watcher of the landscape industry in the UK. I didn’t want to waste my experience and experiences so I decided I could put all of this Juice to good use so I started Landscape Juice.
Source: Landscape Juice – Should We Worry About Weedkiller in Our Pee? – Philip Voice
