I’ve been fighting for a while to get what is now regarded as a ‘human carcinogen’-glyphosate banned from New Zealand. Many others have been fighting the battle for much longer.
Glyphosate is the active weed killing component in Roundup, and a number of other products. It is now banned in a number of countries around the world, and previous owner Monsanto, and new owner Bayer of Germany, have already shelled out billions of dollars in costly court actions to families whose loved ones have died of cancer after using glyphosate.
Bayer bought the rights to glyphosate from Monsanto for - wait for it - 64 billion dollars in cash.
The New Zealand Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) is finally seeking feedback on glyphosate use in New Zealand. It won’t admit it, but it has been partly held back by using the USA EPA as its go-to organisation. The USA EPA has been accused of collusion with Monsanto, helping to publish articles saying glyphosate is perfectly safe, and they should now be ignored.
So now, we at Ponsonby News urge you to put a submission in to our EPA calling for glyphosate to be banned, at the very least from our streets, parks, berms, school gates and public walk ways. If you, or someone you know, has had their health compromised by contact with glyphosate, please tell the EPA.
Glyphosate is still used extensively on Auckland street berms, in parks and reserves, outside school gates, and on sports fields. It is important to stress that it is not only Roundup which contains glyphosate. There are 60 or 70 other commercial products which do too.
We personally had a landscaper doing some work on our section. He said he would spray first, to make the clean up easier. I specifically told him - No glyphosate. He told me he used an organic glyphosate-free spray. When the weeds died so spectacularly, I was very suspicious. Sure enough, the weedicide he used said ‘organic, glyphosate free’ but the fine print on the pack said ‘includes glyphosate’. It wasn’t him that was being deceptive, it is the bloody producer of this cancer causing product, hidden away in so many weed killer products.
Let’s hope our EPA gets the full story from users, and the abused, and bans this deadly product. Sometimes cancers take 30, 40 years to come to light. How many of our young are we allowing to absorb this dangerous product, who may be ingesting a carcinogen which will eventually kill them.
The head of hazardous substances at our EPA is Dr Chris Hill. Here is the EPA email: glyphosate@epa.govt.nz (JOHN ELLIOTT)
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