On 28/11/17 11:05, Martin Brown wrote:

They will just keep on using it even thought it is "banned".

When the UK exits the EU, the average number of Directives and
Regulations brought into *effective* law in the Member States will
diminish greatly!

Only if somebody actually enforces it. How old is the Dutch ban?

Is it a similar "ban" as this?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dr-Stahler-danadim-Progress-Universal-insectizid-20-ml/282710942827?hash=item41d2e2a46b:g:4FAAAOSwImRYdN9 0

I can't buy dimethoate in the UK, but it seems to be available in Germany.

Even Amazon.de sells it

On sale in lots of places in NL for example
https://agriking.nl/danadimr-progres...ildluizen.html
There a lot of warnings in the advert. It is on the RHS withdrawn list.
https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=820#section-2

Seems quite a lot of the organophosphorous compounds have been withdrawn
- perhaps with good reason as they are nerve agents and rather toxic.

But that is the idea - they are nerve agents; that's how they work. They
have a wide range of toxicity from insect to mammalian species. Even
within species, toxicity varies markedly - I'd be (and have been in the
past) quite happy to use dimethoate, and before that malathion, but I'd
draw the line at spraying my plants with VX, sarin, or tabun!

Some of them the more annoying pests have evolved a state of genetic
immunity that renders them almost useless. Red spider for instance.

Indeed, but the more they are restricted the less become available, and
the more likely resistance will develop to those remaining.

Is it banned in UK? French attempts to get an EU ban have failed so far.

The Dutch have banned the use of Glyphosate by everybody except commercial
growers. The ban includes local authorities and amateur gardeners. There's none
on sale in garden centres. Our local authority has tried various alternatives
first steam, then a powered mechanical flail and more recently they have been
using a large powered mechanical rotary scrubbing brush to remove weeds from
pavements and brick surfaced roads (pave)

That is particularly silly since it is the use of glyphosate on a near
industrial scale by monoculture farmers of GM crops that is causing all
the problems. Glyphosate is astonishingly lethal to normal green plants
considering how benign it is towards other living things. The wetting
agents in commercial formulations are more toxic than the active
ingredient (which has an LD50 about the same as caffeine in coffee).

What are "all the problems"? The problems resulting from not using
glyphosate vastly outweigh those from using it, such as severe soil
erosion from too much ploughing.

Used selectively against weeds in a garden it is by far the most
effective solution and much greener that trying to cook them with a
flamethrower or other "faux green" alternatives.

Of course, but that option wouldn't exist if it had been banned. The
Greens don't apply logic or use science.

--

Jeff