The world is definitely going green. “Green” is the color of environmental dilemma, the impetus that compels cuttingedge technology, the buzz word of the conscious. Concern for the natural environment and man’s impact on it’s bringing a slew of new products to market , and pest control is no exception. Environmentally friendly pest control services are growing in popularity, particularly in the commercial sector. Even eco-savvy residential consumers are requesting about natural alternatives to traditional pesticides, but their ardor often stinks when faced with the 10% to 20% cost differential and longer therapy intervals, some times a few weeks.

The increasing of America’s environmental awareness, along with increasingly strict federal regulations regulating traditional chemical dyes, appears to be shifting the pest control industry’s attention to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) methods. IPM is considered not just safer to your environment, yet safer for people, pets and secondary scavengers such as owls. Of 378 pest management businesses surveyed in 2008 by Pest Control Technology magazine, also two-thirds said that they offered IPM services of some kind.

Rather than jelqing pest internet sites with a poisonous cocktail of insecticides designed to kill, IPM is targeted on chemical avoidance techniques designed to maintain insects out. While non- or – no-toxicity products might also be utilised to encourage pests to package their bags, control and removal efforts revolve around finding and eliminating the source of infestation: entry points, attractants, harborage and food.

Notably popular with both schools and nursing homes charged with guarding the fitness of the nation’s youngest and oldest citizens, people at highest risk from hazardous compounds, IPM is grabbing the eye of hotels, office buildings, apartment complexes and other commercial sectors, in addition to eco-conscious residential clients. Founded in equivalent parts by environmental concerns and health hazard anxieties, curiosity about IPM is bringing a plethora of brand new environmentally friendly pest control products — both high- and – low tech — to advertise.

In an Associated Press interview published on MSNBC online last April, Green clarified, “A mouse can squeeze through a gap the size of a pen diameter. Therefore, if you’ve obtained a quarter-inch gap under your doorway, as far as a mouse is concerned, there isn’t any door there whatsoever.” Cockroaches can slither through a oneeighth inch crevice.

IPM is “an improved way to pest control for the wellness of the home, the surroundings and the household,” said Cindy Mannes, ” spokeswoman for the National Pest Management Association, the $6.3 billion pest control industry’s own trade association, at exactly the same Associated Press story. But because IPM has been a rather new addition to the insect control toolbox, Mannes cautioned that there is not much industry consensus on this is of services that are green.

Identifying pest control software products and companies that eschew traditional pesticides in support of environmentally friendly control techniques, GSC is endorsed by the EPA, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and HUD. IPM favors mechanical, cultural and physical methods to control pests, but might use bio-pesticides produced from naturally-occurring materials like animals, bacteria, plants and certain minerals.

Hazardous chemical sprays are giving way to new, sometimes unconventional, means of treating insects. Some are ultra high tech just like the quick freeze Cryonite process for eliminating bed bugs. The others, like trained dogs who sniff out bed bugs, seem decidedly lowtech, but employ state-of-the-art methods to reach results. As an instance, farmers have used dogs’ sensitive noses to sniff problem pests for years and years; but educating dogs to sniff out explosives and drugs is a relatively recent growth.

The following brand new pest control technique is birth control. When San Francisco was threatened by mosquitoes carrying potentially lethal West Nile Virus, bicycle messengers were hired to cruise the city and drop packets of biological insecticide in to the town’s 20,000 storm drains. A kind of contraceptive for mosquitoes, the newest method was considered safer compared to aerial spraying with the compound pyrethrum, the normal mosquito abatement procedure, according to a recent report published within the National Public Radio site.

Of course there are efforts underway to construct a better mouse trap. The innovative Track & Trap system attracts rats or mice to a food station dusted with fluorescent powder. Rodents render a blacklight-visible trail that allows pest control pros to seal entry avenues. Coming soon, NightWatch uses pheromone research to trap and lure bed bugs. In England a sonic device supposed to repel rodents and rats is being analyzed, and the aptly named Rat Zapper is supposed to deliver a lethal jolt using two AA batteries.

With this influx of new environmentally-friendly services and products rides a posse of national regulations. Similarly, 2008 EPA regulations forbidding the selling of small quantities of effective rodenticides, unless sold inside a specific trap, has eliminated rodent-killing compounds from the shelves of hardware and diy stores, limiting the homeowner’s capacity to protect his family and property from such disease-carrying insects.

Acting for people good, the government’s pesticide-control actions are especially aimed at protecting children. Based on a May 20, 2008 report on CNN online, a report conducted by the American Association of Poison Control Centers suggested that the rat poison was in charge of nearly 60,000 poisonings between 2001 and 2003, 250 of these leading to serious injuries or death. National Wildlife Service testing in California found rodenticide residue in every creature analyzed.

Consumers are embracing the idea of natural pest control and environmentally-friendly, cutting pest control products and techniques. Availability and government regulations are increasingly limiting consumers’ self-treatment options, forcing them to turn into professional pest control companies for rest from insect invasions. As this has established a viable alternative for industrial clients, few residential customers seem willing to pay high charges for newer, more labor intensive green pest control services and products and much fewer are willing to wait the additional week or 2 it may take the items to get the job done. It is taking leadership efforts on the part of pest control businesses to teach consumers in the long term benefits of green and organic pest treatments.

Though the cold, hard reality is that whenever folks have a problem with pests they want it gone and they need it gone today! If rats or rodents come within their residence destroying their property and endangering their family together with disease, if termites or carpenter ants are eating away their home equity, if roaches are threatening their kitchen or if they’re sharing their bed with bed bugs, consumer interest in ecological friendliness plummets. If folks call a pest control company, the most important thing is that they desire the bugs dead! Now! Pest control firms are standing up against the wave of consumer demand for immediate eradication by enhancing their green and natural pest control product offerings. These fresh all-natural products require the most responsible long term approach to pest control; the one which protects the environment, children, and our own wellness. Sometimes it’s alone moving from the tide of popular demand, but true leadership, at the pest control industry, means embracing these new natural technologies when they aren’t popular with the consumer – yet.