Defoliant used on entire city, £50,000 a kilo for nettles
Leicester City Council buys 2300 litres of Roundup (Glycosphate) defoliant every year. (Freedom of Information stat.) .
As each litre is sufficient according to the label for a thousand square metres this amounts to 568.34238 acres. or 2.3 square kilometres.
Abbey park is 57 acres. So does Leicester City Council defoliate an area of land 10 times the size of the citys biggest park. And in this age of maintaining carbon balance, is it legal?. It is well known fact that removing the surface organic growth decreases the amount of carbon sequestered per metre.
When plants are left to grow they capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and over time build up a higher biomass (Roots in the soil, trunks, humus from falling leaves, bacteria, invertebrates and dare I say mammals and birds.)
I have asked them not to spray around my house and usually they comply although we had a little accident last year.
6 years ago when they started with the spraying they sprayed nettles which I had growing in amongst flowers in my flower bed. They compensated me for my nettles as I said I wanted them there to encourage butterflies. They paid £150 for about 3 grms of dried nettle. This is the equivalent of £49,999 per kilo. Gold is today at £10,675 per kilo. (Five years ago it was worth a lot less then that.)
The strategy geeks and policy wonks at Environment city need to have a rethink.
As each litre is sufficient according to the label for a thousand square metres this amounts to 568.34238 acres. or 2.3 square kilometres.
Abbey park is 57 acres. So does Leicester City Council defoliate an area of land 10 times the size of the citys biggest park. And in this age of maintaining carbon balance, is it legal?. It is well known fact that removing the surface organic growth decreases the amount of carbon sequestered per metre.
When plants are left to grow they capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and over time build up a higher biomass (Roots in the soil, trunks, humus from falling leaves, bacteria, invertebrates and dare I say mammals and birds.)
I have asked them not to spray around my house and usually they comply although we had a little accident last year.
6 years ago when they started with the spraying they sprayed nettles which I had growing in amongst flowers in my flower bed. They compensated me for my nettles as I said I wanted them there to encourage butterflies. They paid £150 for about 3 grms of dried nettle. This is the equivalent of £49,999 per kilo. Gold is today at £10,675 per kilo. (Five years ago it was worth a lot less then that.)
The strategy geeks and policy wonks at Environment city need to have a rethink.
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