We hope that you would have read the post concerning the EU Parliament Committee assessing the withdrawal of pesticide active ingredients within the EU.
I love it when a plan comes together. It was reported yesterday in The Daily Mail by Sean Poulter their Consumer Affairs Editor that Fruit juice drinks sold in Britain contain larger amounts of pesticides than products sold elsewhere in the world, according to new research.
The Daily Mail report states that a study sampling more than 100 soft drinks from 15 countries found those in Britain had the highest concentrations. Brands such as Coca-Cola and Fanta were named in the report.
The levels were on average more than 34 times greater than those permitted in drinking water, with some up to 300 times.
Some of the pesticide active ingredients said to be found in the fizzy drinks are known to Turf Managers and Groundsmen, including Carbendazim used for disease and worm cast control, Iprodione, the active ingredient found in the now renamed Rovral Green. Other included Thiabendazole, Imazalil, Prochloraz and Malathion.
The concentrations of pesticides were compared with the levels permitted in drinking water in the European Union. These are 0.1 micrograms per litre for each pesticide and 0.5 micrograms per litre for the total concentration.
The average concentration of pesticides was the highest in Britain at 17.4 micrograms per litre, ahead of 12.3 in Spain and 4.9 in France. Drinks bought in the United States, Russia and Morocco had significantly lower levels of pesticide, according to the report in the journal Analytical Chemistry.
Strangely, I tried to find this article online in order to link to it for the benefit of our readers but failed to do so. Not big enough news it seems when there is so much celebrity gossip around.
So next time you reach for a bottle of your favourite soft drink at the supermarket, consider this vital information whilst you nip outside to find a nice soft parkland lawn to site on to drink it in the sunshine - the fair chance is that what you are drinking has more pesticides on it than the lawn you are sitting on. Food for thought indeed. I rest my case.
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