Metaldehyde Slug Pellets Finally Banned

Environment Secretary Michael Gove said:
"I recognise that significant effort has been put into encouraging growers and gardeners to use this pesticide responsibly by the Metaldehyde Stewardship Group. However, the advice is clear that the risks to wildlife are simply too great – and we must all play our part in helping to protect the environment.
I encourage companies and growers to look at the alternatives, such as ferric phosphate, which is authorised and does not carry similar risks."

Sales being banned 6 months from now (summer 2019) and then being given a further 12 months for any supplies to be used up.

Personaly I am glad its coming off the market as a lot of people use too many in one go .... but I know very little about the alternative "ferric phosphate" I have been using slug pub traps with beer in and regulary checking pots and nooks and cranies ... but I do have a resident hedghog so I am mindful in what best for him ...

Spruce

 

I don’t use many slug pellets at all....when I do they are used sparingly and are covered. Same old story though, a product is banned because it is overused. Folk need to read details of chemicals they use and realise less is more.....a few scattered pellets is effective; a mass dosing of them is not

 

We've never use slug pellets here, we have 5 hedgehog and we still have slugs, also the ban will stop dogs geting poisoned as well, where people use to many or spill a lot and don't clean them up

 

Yeah, perhaps they should ban house building/ development of so called waste ground.
It usually contains native plants and weeds, ground cover and refuge for wildlife.

Banning slug pellets is just one tiny part of so called "protecting wildlife".

As to politicians

Sanctimonious hypocrites the lot of them.

 

Personally dont use them as we still have plenty birds etc that control them. No hedgehogs as the lovely cuddly badgers ate them all.

As the country heads towards chaos and the streets are now a lawless crime scene its bizarre how the government choose now to save the slugs?

 

Huge display of them reduced to clear at my local Homebase.

 

Woo is that to send them over the fence

 

Personally I think this is a good thing. If you kill off the slugs then you kill off their predators and subsequently get an infestation of slugs. Much better I think to try and encourage their predators to keep the numbers in check. If I lose a couple of lettuces then so what. Im in my second year of owning this garden and I'm trying to make it a space for me and for wildlife. My neighbours gardens appear to be extensions of their living rooms and they kill anything that moves.