In the first article in this series, we explored New York's 2010 pesticide law for schools and daycares. This law establishes admirable rules for keeping outdoor spaces safe, and the New York State Department of Conservation (DEC) has offered equally stellar guidance for choosing alternatives to conventional pesticides.

However, Beyond Pesticides has suggestions to offer New York State to improve these rules, and the safety of school and daycare communities. We'll explore those recommendations in this article.

Take a gander at the ingredients on an herbicide or pesticide label and you'll note that "other"  or "inert" ingredients significantly outweigh the active ones.

So what's in there? 

If you casually surf the web to learn about the safety of a particular lawn chemical, you may walk away feeling comforted by information provided by the US EPA or the company selling the chemical. However, there's a solid body of research indicating that the health and environmental problems associated with these products are cause for concern. What's with the conflicting information?

In this article, I'll explore some factors that contribute to our haziness around lawn chemical safety. Understanding these variables allows us to read safety claims with a critical eye.

Working for three organic or naturally-grown veggie farms taught me plenty about quality compost, foliar feeding with seaweed emulsion, mulching and intercropping to suppress weeds, and encouraging beneficial insects for pest management. However, it did not teach me a lick about conventional herbicides.

To gain a better grasp of safety when harvesting in the vicinity of treated lawns--whether physically or time-wise, months or years post-treatment-- I'll offer a series of articles delving into lawn chemicals. Here, we'll look at the categories of herbicides that are commonly used today and how they work. 

In 2009, New York State Parks Commissioner Carol Ash signed a Policy on Pesticide Reduction in State Parks and Historic Sites. In this article, I'll discuss points from the document that I found noteworthy for foragers.

Each time I have spoken with park management staff for parks in my area, I've found that there is potential for partnerships with foragers to remove invasive species and weeds that are edible and medicinal.

Before a forager harvests in any location, it's important to learn about the land-use history in that spot, and in the greater area. The Policy on Pesticide Reduction in State Parks and Historic Sites is a great place to begin.

This year, I'll be digging deep into lawn care. The Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) offers a detailed resource for applying organic standards to landscaping and land care. If you rent your home, feel empowered to share this guide with the person you rent from. (If I were your landlady, I'd be delighted to have such a conscientious tenant!)

 If you own land, check out this document to learn how you might better serve the ecosystem your property is a part of--and how to keep your family safer, too.  

 In order for a health practitioner to do the job well, educating oneself about the health effects of environmental contamination is required. I'm grateful for Sandra Steingraber's book Living Downstream- a research-based yet personal exploration of the health effects of environmental contaminants.

Future historians may well be amazed by our distorted sense of proportion. How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death even to their own kind? Yet this is precisely what we have done. We have done it, moreover, for reasons that collapse the moment we examine them. 

-Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (19)

Rachel Carson's story has been featured in several books I've picked up recently, including Living Downstream by Sandra Steingraber and Paul Hawken's Blessed Unrest. When I discovered that several friends hadn't heard of her, I felt moved to feature Rachel here. Though I'm not one to feel starstruck by a film actor or rock star, imagining what I might have said to Rachel Carson (if I'd had the opportunity before she passed) makes me feel a bit weak in the knees. Really, "Thank you!" is all there is to say for her brave and groundbreaking work for environmental sustainability and justice.

 Phytoremediation is the use of plants to remove and/or transform contaminants in the soil. In general, it's appropriate when there are low to medium levels of contamination present.

The relationship between a plant and a contaminant will vary based on the characteristics of the plant, as well as the chemical or heavy metal.

Last week, Patrick and I did some honeymoon hiking in Colorado. On a trail near the Chautauqua Institution in Boulder, I was delighted to find the sign above. This notice of pesticide application may be the first I've seen in a public park or forest. I love that it tells the hiker which invasive species will be targeted, and lists the dates of application.

This is the second of several articles exploring the use of biosolids in agriculture and residential composting products. We begin with general info about contaminants in biosolids—which wastewater treatment can and cannot remove—and how well plants may absorb those contaminants. 

One might ask, “Why does it matter whether we’re technically allowed to harvest invasive garlic mustard, or Japanese knotweed? No one would mind if we took some.” My concern is that if parks and forests do not consciously allow visitors to harvest these plants for eating, their management practices and communication with visitors will also ignore this reality. If both visitors and employees are clear on what we are allowed to nibble, we will have increased the safety of the nibbling.