The entire world is definitely green. "Green" is the color of environmental dilemma, the impetus that compels cuttingedge technology, the buzzword of this conscious. Concern for the natural environment and man's impact on it's bringing a slew of new services to marketpest control is no exception. Environmentally friendly pest control services are growing in popularity, especially in the industrial industry. Even eco-savvy residential individuals are asking about natural alternatives to pesticides that are traditional, but their ardor often cools when faced by the 10 percent to 20% cost differential and longer therapy intervals, some times a couple weeks.
The increasing of America's environmental awareness, in conjunction with increasingly stringent national regulations governing traditional chemical dyes, appears to be altering the pest control industry's focus on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques. IPM is considered not only safer for your environment, however safer for people, pets and secondary scavengers such as owls. Of 378 pest control businesses surveyed in 2008 by Pest Control Technology magazine, also two thirds said they offered IPM services of some kind.
Rather than jelqing pest web sites with a noxious cocktail of powerful insecticides intended to kill, IPM focuses on environmentally-friendly prevention methods made to maintain insects out. While low- or no-toxicity services and products may also be used to support pests to package their bags, elimination and control efforts revolve around finding and eliminating the causes of infestation: entry points, attractants, harborage and food.
Particularly popular with schools and assisted living facilities charged with protecting the health of the nation's youngest and oldest citizens, people at highest risk from toxic compounds, IPM is catching the attention of hotels, office buildings, apartment complexes and other commercial businesses, as well as eco-conscious residential customers. Driven in equal parts by environmental concerns and health hazard fears, curiosity about IPM is attracting a lot of new environmentally-friendly pest control services and products -- both high- and low tech -- to advertise.
"most likely the best product out there's a door sweep," confided Tom Green, president of the Integrated Pest Management Institute of North America, a non profit organization that certifies green exterminating businesses. In an Associated Press interview published on MSNBC online last April, Green explained,"A mouse can squeeze through a gap the size of a pencil diameter. Therefore, if you have acquired a quarter-inch gap underneath your doorway, so much as a mouse is concerned, there's no door there whatsoever." Cockroaches can slither via a oneeighth inch crevice.
IPM has been"a better way to pest control for the wellness of your home, the environment and the family," said Cindy Mannes, spokeswoman for the National Pest Management Association, the $6.3 billion pest control industry's own trade association, at the exact same Associated Press story. But because IPM has been a comparatively recent addition to this pest control arsenal, Mannes cautioned that there is minimal industry consensus on this is of green services.
In Order to produce industry standards for IPM services and providers, the Integrated Pest Management Institute of North America produced the Green Shield Certified (GSC) software. Identifying pest control products and companies that eschew traditional pesticides in favor of environmentally friendly control techniques, GSC is backed by the EPA, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and HUD. IPM favors mechanical, physical and cultural techniques to control pests, but may use bio-pesticides produced from naturally occurring materials like animals, plants, bacteria and certain minerals.
Toxic chemical sprays are giving way to new, sometimes unconventional, means of pests. Some are ultra high-tech such as the quick freeze Cryonite process for eliminating bed bugs. The others, like trained dogs that snore bed pests, look decidedly low-tech, but employ innovative methods to achieve success. As an example, farmers have used dogs' sensitive noses to sniff out pests for centuries; nevertheless training dogs to sniff out explosives and drugs is a rather recent progress. Utilizing those very same methods to show dogs to sniff out termites and bed bugs is recognized as cuttingedge.
Yet another new pest control procedure is birth control. After bay area was jeopardized with mosquitoes carrying potentially life threatening West Nile Virus, bicycle messengers were hired to flee the city and shed packets of biological insecticide in to the city's 20,000 storm drains. A kind of contraception for mosquitoes, the new method has been considered safer compared to airborne spraying with the chemical pyrethrum, the typical mosquito abatement procedure, as per a recent story posted within the National Public Radio site.
Naturally, there are efforts to build a better mousetrap. The innovative Track & Trap system brings mice or rats to some food station dusted with fluorescent powder. Pest Control Ware leave a blacklight-visible trail that allows pest control pros to seal entrance avenues. Coming soon, NightWatch uses pheromone research to trap and lure bed bugs. In England, a sonic device designed to repel squirrels and rats is being analyzed, along with the aptly called Rat Zapper is supposed to supply a lethal shock using two AA batteries.
With this influx of new environmentally friendly services and products rides a posse of federal regulations. Critics of contemporary EPA regulations restricting the sale of certain pest-killing chemicals accuse the government of unfairly limiting a homeowner's power to safeguard his home. The EPA's 2004 banning of this compound diazinon for household use a couple of years past removed a potent ant-killer from the homeowner's pest control toolbox. Similarly, 2008 EPA regulations forbidding the selling of small amounts of effective rodenticides, unless sold inside an enclosed snare, has stripped rodent-killing chemicals from the shelves of both hardware and diy stores, limiting the homeowner's ability to protect his property and family from such disease-carrying insects.
Acting for the public well, the government's pesticide-control activities are specially geared toward protecting kids. In accordance with a May 20, 2008 report on CNN online, a study conducted by the American Association of Poison Control Centers signaled that the rat poison was in charge of nearly 60,000 poisonings between 2001 and 2003, 250 of these causing serious injuries or death. National Wildlife Service testing in California found rodenticide deposit in every animal analyzed.
Consumers are embracing the idea of natural pest control and environmentally friendly, cutting off pest control products and processes. Availability and government regulations are increasingly limiting consumers' self-treatment choices, forcing them to show to pest control businesses to get respite from pest invasions. While this has established a viable choice for business clients, few residential customers seem willing to pay for higher costs for newer, more more laborintensive green pest control services and products and much fewer are willing to wait the extra week or two it could take these items to do the job. It is taking leadership efforts for pest control companies to educate consumers in the long-term advantages of green and natural pest treatments.
Even though the cold, hard reality is that when individuals have a problem with pests , they are interested gone and they need it gone now! If rats or mice have been within their property destroying their property and endangering their family with disease, if termites or carpenter ants are eating their home equity, in case roaches are threatening their kitchen or if they are sharing their bed with bed bugs, consumer interest in environmental surroundings plummets. If people call a pest control business, the main point is they desire the fleas dead! Now! Pest control firms have been standing up against the wave of consumer requirement for prompt eradication by enhancing their green and natural pest control product supplies. These fresh organic products take the most responsible long term approach to pest control; one which protects the environment, children, and also our personal wellbeing. Some times it is lonely moving against the tide of popular demand, but true leadership, at the pest control business, means embracing these new organic and natural technologies even when they aren't popular with the user - yet.