The world is definitely going green. "Green" could be your color of ecological stress, the impetus which drives cutting edge technology, the buzz word of this socially conscious. Concern for the environment and man's impact on it's bringing a ton of new services and products to promote pest control isn't any exception. Environmentally-friendly pest control products and services are growing in popularity, particularly in the industrial sector. Even eco-savvy residential consumers are requesting about natural alternatives to traditional pesticides, however, their ardor frequently cools when faced with the 10% to 20% cost differential and lengthier treatment intervals, sometimes several weeks.

The raising of America's environmental awareness, coupled with increasingly strict federal regulations governing conventional chemical dyes, seems to be changing the pest control industry's focus to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques. IPM is considered not merely safer for the environment, but safer for people, pets and secondary scavengers such as owls. Of 378 pest management organizations surveyed in 2008 by Pest Control Technology magazine, also twothirds said they offered IPM professional services of some kind.

Instead of lacing pest sites with a noxious cocktail of insecticides designed to kill,'' IPM is targeted on environmentally-friendly prevention methods created to keep insects out. While non - or - no-toxicity services and products might also be used to encourage pests to package their bags, elimination and control efforts focus on finding and eliminating the root of infestation: entry points, attractants, harborage and food.

Notably popular with schools and nursing homes charged with protecting the wellbeing of the world's youngest and oldest citizens, people at highest risk from hazardous chemicals, IPM is catching the attention of hotels, office buildings, apartment complexes and other commercial sectors, as well as low-income residential customers. Driven in Pest Control Hitchin by ecological concerns and health danger anxieties, interest in IPM is bringing a multitude of fresh environmentally-friendly pest control services and products -- both high- and - lowtech -- to advertise.

"Probably the most effective product out there's actually a door sweep," confided Tom Green, president of the Integrated Pest Management Institute of North America, a non profit organization that certifies green exterminating organizations. In an Associated Press interview posted on MSNBC online last April, Green explained,"A mouse can squeeze through a hole the size of a pen diameter. Therefore, in the event that you have found a quarter-inch gap underneath your door, so far as a mouse is concerned, there's no door there whatsoever." Cockroaches can slither via a oneeighth inch crevice.

IPM has been"a better approach to pest control to the health of your home, the surroundings and the household," explained 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. However, because IPM is still a rather new addition into the pest control toolbox, Mannes cautioned that there is very little industry consensus on this is of green services.

IPM prefers mechanical, cultural and physical methods to control pests, but might use bio-pesticides derived from naturally occurring materials like animals, plants, bacteria and certain minerals.

Others, like trained dogs that snore bed bugs, seem unnaturally low tech, but apply innovative techniques to achieve effects. By way of example, farmers have used dogs' sensitive noses to sniff out pests for centuries; but training dogs to sniff out explosives and drugs is a rather recent development.


Still another fresh pest control procedure is contraception. When bay area was threatened with mosquitoes carrying potentially lifethreatening West Nile Virus, bike messengers were hired to flee the town and shed packets of biological insecticide into the city's 20,000 storm drains. Akind of birth control for mosquitoes, the newest method has been considered safer than aerial spraying with the chemical pyrethrum, the normal mosquito abatement procedure, as demonstrated by a recent report published within the National Public Radio site.

Naturallythere are efforts to construct a better mousetrap. The innovative Track & Trap system attracts rats or mice to a food station dusted with powder. Rodents render a blacklight-visible course which allows pest control pros to secure entry paths. Coming soon, night watch uses pheromone research to lure and trap bed bugs. Back in Englanda sonic device designed to repel squirrels and rats is being analyzed, and the aptly called Rat Zapper is purported to deliver a deadly shock using only two AA batteries.

Alongside this influx of new environmentally-friendly products rides a posse of national regulations. Critics of recent EPA regulations restricting the sale of certain pest-killing chemicals accuse the government of limiting a homeowner's power to protect his home. The EPA's 2004 banning of this compound diazinon for household use a few years past removed a potent ant-killer from the homeowner's pest control toolbox. Similarly, 2008 EPA regulations prohibiting the selling of small amounts of effective rodenticides, unless sold inside an enclosed snare, has stripped 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 the public good, the authorities pesticide-control actions are particularly geared toward protecting kids. According to a May 20, 2008 report on CNN on the web, a report conducted by the American Association of Poison Control Centers signaled that rat poison had been in charge of almost 60,000 poisonings between 2001 and 2003, 250 of them resulting in serious injuries or death. National Wildlife Service analyzing in California found rodenticide deposit in most creature analyzed.

Individuals are embracing the notion of pest control and environmentally friendly, cutting off pest control products and processes. Availability and government regulations are increasingly limiting consumers' self-treatment possibilities, forcing them to turn into professional pest control companies to get rest in pest invasions. As it's established a viable solution for business clients, few residential customers seem willing to pay for high charges for newer, more more labor intensive green pest control products and much fewer are prepared to wait for the additional week or two it could take these items to work. It's taking leadership efforts for pest control companies to teach consumers in the long-term benefits of green and organic pest treatments.

Although the cold, hard truth is that if people have a problem with pests , they are interested gone and so they need it gone now! If rats or rodents have been within their property ruining their property and threatening their family together with disease, if termites or carpenter ants are eating their home equity, in case roaches are threatening their toilet or if they're sharing their bed with bed bugs, even consumer interest in environmental surroundings plummets. If folks call a pest control firm, the bottom line is they want the bugs dead! Now! Pest control firms have been standing facing the tide of consumer demand for immediate eradication by enhancing their green and natural pest control product offers. These fresh all-natural products require the most responsible long-term approach to pest control; the one that protects our environment, children, and also our personal wellbeing. Some times it is lonely moving against the wave of popular demand, but authentic leadership, in the pest control industry, means embracing these new organic and natural technologies even when they aren't popular with the user - nonetheless.