Use of potentially cancer-causing pesticide to be ended by a Suffolk council
It will cost the council £20,000
A proposal to stop using a potentially cancer-causing herbicide at a cost of £20,000 has been backed by West Suffolk Council.
A Green Party motion that the council ends the use of glyphosate from its operations by April 2023 was approved at a meeting last week.
Having put the motion forward, Green Party Cllr Julia Wakelam said after the vote: “I am delighted the council has finally acknowledged the use of glyphosate in a biodiversity crisis is unacceptable. I have been calling for its ban for years.
“When I was young, your windscreen would be splattered with insects whenever you went for a drive. That just doesn’t happen now, because we have lost over 60 percent of our insects.
“This has a long-term impact on human health and nutrition because food production depends on insects.”
The proposal included the pledge to stop using glyphosate in all the council’s in-house operations by April 2023, without increasing the use of other chemical weedkillers.
An exception made for invasive species such as Japanese Knotweed and Giant Hogweed will allow glyphosate to be safely injected into plants.
Supporting the proposal, Conservative Cllr Joe Mason said: “This demonstrates the council’s clear commitment to a move away from using harmful chemicals and prioritising safer practices.
“We all have to understand that in some places we may see some more unwelcome growth. There are increased costs and some disadvantages that will need to be managed.
“However, I do not believe it ethical to prioritise aesthetics, convenience and cost over the harmful and dangerous effects that these chemicals have.”
The World Health Organisation stated that glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic to humans” in 2015. However, co-analysis by the United Nations’ food and agriculture organisation (FAO) in 2016 found it was “unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet”.
Analysis by five US scientists in 2019 found that evidence “supports a compelling link” between exposure to glyphosate-based weedkillers and increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma cancer.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) concluded that classifying the chemical as carcinogenic was not justified in May 2022. A peer review of an assessment into glyphosate by the EFSA is expected to be available in July next year.
Speaking after the decision, deputy leader of the council Cllr Jo Rayner said: “With our ecosystems already feeling the effects of climate change, removing glyphosate is a step in the right direction and should bring many other benefits to our wildlife.”
A 2018 study by the University of Texas at Austin found that young worker bees exposed to glyphosate died more often when they later came against a common bacterium. Research from China published this year showed that honeybee larvae grew more slowly and died more frequently when exposed to the weedkiller.
Glyphosate was partially banned in Austria this year, after two unsuccessful attempts at a total ban. It was prohibited for individual home use in the Netherlands in 2014.
In September 2019, Germany’s environment ministry announced that glyphosate will be banned in the country from the end of 2023.
In the UK, Bath and North East Somerset stopped using the weedkiller in 2021 and opted instead for machine weeding.
West Suffolk Council manages the areas of open space it owns alongside other areas on behalf of parishes, sports clubs and housing associations.
The council declared a climate and biodiversity emergency in 2019 and created a climate change action plan to work towards carbon net zero by 2030.