A three month long scheme to facilitate the legal disposal of pesticide products which no longer hold a current product registration has just been introduced.
Commencing on 1 January 2009, you could be forgiven if you have not heard about this excellent pesticide clean-up initiative.
| Pest controllers’ stores up and down the country may well contain products which no longer carry a valid product registration. These products could either be out-of-date or have had their approvals revoked, withdrawn or suspended – more than likely due to the rigours of the Biocidal Products Directive. It is illegal to sell, supply, store or use any such product. But if you do have any of these products in-store, what do you do with them? Under the terms of this new initiative, called the Public Health Pesticide Disposal Scheme (PHPDS), a three month long window (1 January to 31 March 2009) has been agreed with the relevant authorities during which time any non-approved product can be disposed of. Initiated jointly by NPTA and BPCA, both organisations are keen to point out that, at the end of this one-off ‘amnesty’, anyone caught with non-approved products in their store will be open to prosecution and a possible heavy fine. So what do you do? The first step is to check if any product you have is illegal. There are two pages on the HSE website where you can easily check a product’s status – one for registered products and one for withdrawn products. If you find you have products that are no longer approved refer to the PHPDS website where further instructions await. Alternatively contact your regular pest control distributor who may be able to help. Finally, to be somewhat critical, it is a shame the communication of this excellent initiative appears to have been so low-key. No doubt BPCA and NPTA will advise their own members, but what of the rest of the pest control industry, in particular Local Authorities and pest controllers who are not members of either association? |
