Can There Be A Boom Or Bust Coming For Natural Pest Control

The entire world is going green. "Green" is the color of ecological concern, the impetus that drives cuttingedge technology, the buzzword of this socially conscious. Concern for the natural environment and man's impact on it is bringing a ton of new services to market, and pest control isn't any exception. Environmentally friendly pest control providers are growing in popularity, particularly in the commercial industry. Even eco-savvy residential consumers are requesting about natural alternatives to pesticides that are traditional, but their ardor usually stinks when confronted with the 10% to 20% cost differential and lengthier treatment times, some times several weeks.

The increasing of America's environmental awareness, along with increasingly stringent national regulations governing conventional chemical pesticides, seems to be changing the pest control industry's focus to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques. IPM is considered not merely safer for your environment, however safer for people, pets and secondary scavengers such as owls. Of 378 pest management companies surveyed in 2008 from Pest Control Technology magazine, also two thirds said they offered IPM professional services of some sort.

Instead of lacing pest sites with a poisonous cocktail of powerful insecticides designed to kill, IPM is targeted on environmentally-friendly prevention methods developed to maintain pests out. While non - or no-toxicity products could also be utilised to support pests to package their bags, control and elimination efforts focus on finding and eliminating the source of infestation: entry points, attractants, harborage and food.



Particularly popular with both schools and assisted living facilities charged with guarding the overall health of the nation's youngest and oldest citizens, those at greatest risk from hazardous compounds, IPM is grabbing the attention of hotels, office buildings, apartment complexes and other industrial ventures, in addition to low-income residential customers. Founded in equivalent parts by ecological concerns and health danger anxieties, fascination with IPM is attracting a lot of fresh environmentally friendly pest management services and products -- both high- and low tech -- to market.

" Web Site out there is really a door sweep," confided Tom Green, president of the Integrated Pest Management Institute of North America, a non profit company that permeates green exterminating organizations. In an Associated Press interview posted on MSNBC on the past April, Green clarified,"A mouse could squeeze through a gap the size of a pen diameter. So if you have found a quarter-inch gap underneath your door, as far as being a mouse is concerned, there isn't any door there whatsoever." Cockroaches can slither through a one eighth inch crevice.

IPM is"a better approach to pest control for the wellness of your home, the surroundings and your household," said Cindy Mannes, spokeswoman for the National Pest Management Association, the $6.3 billion pest control industry's trade association, in exactly the same Associated Press story. But because IPM is still a rather recent addition into this pest control arsenal, Mannes cautioned that there is very little industry consensus on the definition of green services.

In Order to create industry standards for IPM providers and providers, the Integrated Pest Management Institute of the United States developed the Green Shield Certified (GSC) program. IPM favors mechanical, cultural and physical methods to control pests, but might use bio-pesticides derived from naturally-occurring materials like animals, plants, bacteria and certain minerals.

The others, like trained dogs who sniff out bed bugs, seem decidedly low-tech, but employ innovative techniques to reach effects.

Another fresh pest control technique is contraception. When San Francisco was jeopardized with mosquitoes carrying potentially life threatening West Nile Virus, bicycle messengers were hired to flee the city and drop packets of biological insecticide in to the town's 20,000 storm drains. A kind of contraception for mosquitoes, the newest method was considered safer than aerial spraying with the chemical pyrethrum, the typical mosquito abatement procedure, as shown by a recent story posted on the National Public Radio site.

Of course there are efforts to construct a better mousetrap. The advanced Track & Trap system brings mice or rats to a food channel dusted with powder. Rodents leave a blacklight-visible trail which allows pest control experts to secure entry avenues. Coming soon, NightWatch uses pheromone research to trap and lure bed bugs. Back in Englanda sonic device designed to repel squirrels and rats is being tested, as well as the aptly named Rat Zapper is purported to provide a deadly jolt using only two AA batteries.

Alongside this influx of new environmentally friendly products rides a posse of regulations. The EPA's 2004 banning of this chemical diazinon for household use a few years past removed a potent ant-killer from the homeowner's insect control arsenal. Similarly, 2008 EPA regulations prohibiting the selling of small quantities of effective rodenticides, unless sold inside a specific snare, has stripped rodent-killing compounds from the shelves of hardware and home improvement stores, limiting the homeowner's capacity to protect his family and property from these disease-carrying pests.

Acting for people well, the government's pesticide-control activities are particularly geared toward protecting kids. According to a May 20, 2008 report CNN online, a report performed by the American Association of Poison Control Centers signaled that the rat poison had been responsible for nearly 60,000 poisonings between 2001 and 2003, 250 of them causing serious accidents or death. National Wildlife Service analyzing in California found rodenticide residue in every animal analyzed.

Consumers are embracing the notion of pest control and environmentally-friendly, cutting off pest management products and processes. Availability and government regulations are increasingly limiting consumers' self-treatment alternatives, forcing them to show into professional pest control businesses for relief from pest invasions. While it's proved a viable alternative for industrial customers, few residential clients seem willing to pay high costs for newer, more more laborintensive green pest control services and products and fewer are willing to wait the further week or two it may possibly take these products to work. It is taking leadership efforts for pest control businesses to educate consumers from the long-term benefits of green and organic pest control treatments.

Though the cold, hard fact is that if people have a pest problemthey are interested gone and so they need it gone now! If rats or rodents have been inside their property ruining their property and threatening their family disease, if termites or carpenter ants are eating away their home equity, in case roaches are invading their own kitchen or should they are sharing their bed with bed bugs, even consumer interest in ecological surroundings plummets. If folks call a pest control firm, the bottom line is they want the pests dead! Now! Pest control firms are standing facing the tide of consumer demand for immediate eradication by enhancing their green and natural pest control product offers. These brand new organic products require the responsible long term approach to pest control; one that protects the environment, children, and our personal wellness. Sometimes it's lonely moving against the wave of popular demand, but true leadership, at the pest control business, means embracing these fresh natural technologies even when they are not popular with the user - nonetheless.