Chemical Lawn Care

What If We Stopped Poisoning Ourselves?

by Roland Kriewaldt

I once worked part time for a chemical lawn care company in Toronto. It was my job to convince former customers to reconsider after they had cancelled the company's lawn care services.

The most tragic and shocking reason why former customers had cancelled the service turned out to be that their dog or cat had died or become ill from coming into contact with the poisonous chemicals that were sprayed on the lawn. And here I was, hired to talk these poor folks into signing up again. "Hey, you've got a new dog, right? Get over it!"

Needless to say, I didn't last long at that job. It did inspire a reality check about Ecology though: How high does the food chain climb, beginning with the worms marinating in your toxic lawn chemicals?

When you think about it, golf courses are a haven for dew worms. This is why pro worm pickers often go to golf courses to stock the bait shops for fishermen.

Now let's consider all the birds, frogs, snakes, insects, fish and rodents that also eat those same worms. Then we must consider that golf courses are a perpetual dumping ground for pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, and chemical lawn fertilizers. They're also conveniently located near sources of water, so that these poisons and fertilizers run off into the ground water and wind up in the municipal water supply. This happens every time it rains, or when the sprinklers are turned on.

But why should we care? After all, we don't eat worms!

Think about our connection to nature the next time you get a tumor and try to blame it on genetics or God. Fortunately, the same company that makes billions selling toxic lawn chemicals also makes billions selling drugs that supposedly help to fight your cancer. So if one chemical treatment doesn't kill you first, maybe the other one might. Hair of the dog...

In the end, maybe you'll wind up six feet under long before your life would have been officially over. And to add injury to insult, some gardener will wind up pouring weed killer on your cemetary plot every Tuesday afternoon, regular as clockwork.

How's that for a happy ending?