Wednesday, October 3, 2007

A nice day for herbicide

It was pretty windy this morning before 9.00am (and still is), but that didn't stop the City of Darebin spraying herbicide on the western side of High Street south of Westgarth Street in Northcote. With City of Darebin truck number 505 nearby, a City of Darebin worker sprayed the herbicide from a backpack. True, he was using a 'wand', but chances are the herbicide was well and truly distributed where it was never intended to go.

What's the Council policy on herbicide use on windy days? You'd think a reasonable approach would be to call it off, but that might cut across the economic 'efficiencies' of getting our nature-strips covered with toxic chemicals. Got any herbicide stories? Feel free to comment using the link below.

1 comment:

  1. These walking toxic time bombs are everywhere! There seems to have been a proliferation of herbicide spraying around all of Melbourne in the last 2 years. I have even seen a council worker spraying a median strip out of a truck window! Doesn't anyone do any manual work anymore? What happened to getting down on your hand and knees and pulling the damn weeds out. It would boost employment and eradicate all those class actions that are going to arise one day in the future from all this gross negligence when all these workers get sick.

    I have young children who often run out to get the mail, greet a visitor or simply have a look up and down the street in their barefeet. One day I noticed a fellow walking around with a backpack spraying all the cracks in the footpaths and driveways as well as the nature strips themselves. When I inquired what he was doing, I was told that they regularly walk the streets spraying "safe" herbicides to kill the weeks. I was absolutely horrified when I realised that my kids had been running around in this, absorbing it through the soles of their feet. I now have to insist they wear shoes at all times, never sit on the naturestrips or footpath, never play in the nooks and crannies or around any structures at the local park (where they spray constantly, even around the playground) - it is all tainted with poisonous, toxic chemicals that in 10-20 years time will most likely be found to be carcinogenic.

    Is there any wonder we are all getting so sick? I can't believe the hypocrisy of a system that professes to care about the health of its people and spends millions of dollars on healthcare, but continues to sprays toxic chemicals around like its water, getting into our foodchain, the oceans and us! Cheers Elise

    ReplyDelete

Comments are most welcome on any of the posts at Northcote Independent. I encourage feedback - positive or negative. Feel free to disagree, but remember that posts are moderated to ensure they are on the topic and in the spirit of open debate, as outlined in my editorial policy.