Defend What’s Yours

Just in time for Earth Day, I saw a very interesting commercial.  It starts like this… a beautiful couple is standing on an equally beautiful, lush lawn.   The wife teases her husband for not properly caring for their lawn last year.  The weed killer he used also killed the grass, she complains. The husband promises he has learned from his mistakes.  He bought a new pesticide that will kill the weeds without killing the grass.  Problem solved!  The perfect couple smiles and hugs on their perfect lawn.   

Then, cut to the tagline: Defend What’s Yours.

I was so shocked that I laughed out loud.  My son asked why I was laughing.  I just hugged him and thought, that’s exactly what I am doing by not using pesticides on my lawn: defending what is mine.

As the weather warms up, millions of Americans will flock to their hardware or lawn stores in search of the pesticide that will keep their lawn looking “perfect” this summer.  Or, they will hire lawn care professionals to spray it for them, exposing workers to harsh chemicals.  Either way, 102 million pounds of pesticides will be sprayed this year in countless neighborhoods like yours and mine.

Does this fictitious husband, who represents many men and women across the country, realize or care to think about the harm caused by these chemicals?  The truth is that many of them are very toxic and could lead to serious health problems, including cancer.  

According to the President’s Cancer Panel report, released last May, “Nearly 1,400 pesticides have been registered by EPA.  Exposure to these chemicals has been linked to brain/central nervous system, breast, colon, lung, ovarian, pancreatic, kidney, testicular, and stomach cancers, as well as Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and soft tissue sarcoma.  Our friends at Beyond Pesticides point out that, “19 of the 30 most commonly used lawn pesticides are carcinogens or have been linked to cancer.”

If the perfect couple in the commercial truly wants to defend what’s theirs, not to mention protecting the water and air that surrounds them, they need to skip the pesticides.  They can soil their hands with dirt instead of soiling their organs with toxins. 

You can learn about how to manage your lawn and landscape organically at beyondpesticides.org.

Karen Einisman
Consulting Program Director