[GreenYes] =?Windows-1252?Q?Dow=B4s_herbicide_product_poisons_compost?=

["Bill Sheehan" <zerowaste@grrn.org>]

Waste News
November 12, 2001

Composting Council says Dow´s herbicide product
poisons compost

By Joe Truini

HARRISBURG, PA. (Nov. 12) -- The U.S. Composting
Council and environmentalists have raised concerns that
a Dow Chemical Co. weed-killer is poisoning compost.
Confront, a commercial product made by Dow
AgroSciences, contains a herbicide called clopyralid that
has contaminated compost in Pennsylvania, Washington
and New Zealand, according to the council. Plants treated
with Confront and other products have carried clopyralid
into municipal composting systems. Some levels of
contamination were high enough to damage the compost
users´ crops.

"Confront is totally contradictory to all of our goals for
recycling, resource conservation and sustainability," said
Ann Morse, president of the GrassRoots Recycling
Network in Athens, Ga.

The U.S. Composting Council in Harrisburg and others
are calling on Dow to work with the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency to design clearer warning labels on
clopyralid products. They also want the Midland, Mich.,
chemical company to investigate humans and animals
that consume grain, asparagus, beets or their byproducts
to test the amount of clopyralid passing through their
systems into their manure and urine.

###

Waste News subscribers may view the full version of this
story at:
http://www.wastenews.com/headlines.html

Write Dow at www.grrn.org/dow


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