State of Environment Reporting

Landscape Pesticide Use - Lower Mainland

Total Pesticide Use Reported by Landscape Services in the Lower Mainland

SOURCE: Survey of Pesticide Use in British Columbia: 1999. Notes: Fifteen pesticide or groups of pesticides are among 44 substance included in the “1998 Nominating List of Toxic Substances in the Lower Fraser/Georgia Basin”. The list emphasizes suspected endocrine disrupting chemicals and is being developed to track pesticide loading in the environment.

Landscape pesticide use – Lower Mainland

• In the Lower Mainland, the total weight of pesticide active ingredient used by landscape services decreased by 37% between 1991 and 1999.
  
  
• Nine pesticides listed by Environment Canada as priority substances of concern in the Georgia Basin were used by landscape services in 1991. The use of four of these substances, malathion, lindane and trifluralin (possible carcinogens) and endosulphan, decreased from 1991 to 1995 and no uses were reported in 1999.
  
  
• The use of insecticidal soap, a low toxicity pesticide, by landscape services increased by 717 kg since 1991, likely as a replacement for other pesticides.
  
  
• This decrease in pesticide use may in part be due to the efforts by the landscape industry to reduce pesticide use and promote adoption of Integrated Pest Management (IPM). IPM is based on preventing pest problems and applying treatment only when monitoring shows it is necessary.
  
  
• In 1999, 64,100 hectares of farmland in British Columbia, were also managed using methods compatible with IPM.