Allow interior landscaping companies to use any pesticides designated for “home & garden use” in their clients’ premises

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The idea

Interior landscaping companies (i.e. the firms that go round watering plants in people's workplaces) to be allowed to use any pesticide available to the general public. As they are trained in their use there's no reason why this would be unsafe.

Interior landscapers also to be allowed to use any effective and legal substance as a pesticide if it works for them.

Why is it important?

Interior landscapers are currently not allowed to use commercial pesticides (i.e. ones with a MAPP number) as their terms of use only allow their use either outdoors or in commercial greenhouses. The process of changing the spec of any one chemical to allow interior landscaping use is beyond the resources of any individual company. rentokil tried once, and failed.

However many of these chemicals have a commercial equivalent (e.g. Provado 'Bug Killer') which are quite effective and can be bought from any garden centre. These are labelled "for home and garden use only", so interior landscapers are not allowed to use them on a client's premises either. If caught it's the operator, not the company, that is liable too.

This leads to the daft scenario of a client finding a pest problem on a plant and the person they pay to look after their plants being unable to legally do anything effective beyond throwing the whole plant away and starting again. Or even more perversely, giving the client a pesticide to administer themselves.

Some clients expect interior landscapers to have agricultural spraying certificates (PA1 & PA6) before working on site, even though these don't legally enable them to spray anything on anything. But they can give a receptionist a bottle of pesticide and get them to do it themselves, though she's had no training.

Another legal oddity is that some white petroleum oil based plant cleaning products have a proven side effect of controlling certain pests, as do such substances as methylated spirits and washing up liquid. However it's illegal for a commercial landscaping company to specifically use them to treat pests.

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