Stop using pesticides in our public spaces

This petition calls on Portsmouth City Council to stop using pesticides and herbicides in public places and to consider alternative ways of managing wild plants. The council has already declared a nature emergency and committed to finding nature-based solutions.

As we learn more, it is understood that these weed killers, in particular glyphosate, are a danger to health and particularly to children. The World Health Organization says that glyphosate is a ‘probable carcinogen’.

Many of the ‘weeds’ that pesticides kill are simply providing much-needed food for insects, which in turn are the food source of birds and other animals. We need to increase the biodiversity of our neighbourhoods and spraying weed killer around trees and in parks is just unnecessary.

The good news is that we don’t need to use pesticides in our city! 

Increasingly, other towns and cities are finding non-chemical alternatives. Chichester and Petersfield have committed to going pesticide-free and Portsmouth needs to do the same. If the council involves communities then we can stay pesticide-free in the long term – saving costs, protecting our health and increasing biodiversity. A win-win!

If you want a pesticide-free Pompey please sign the petition!  

 
https://www.pan-uk.org/effects-pesticides-women-children/
https://www.iarc.who.int/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/MonographVolume112-1.pdf
https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/news/insects-urgent-action-needed