What about lawn spray companies?

Just because pesticides are “EPA approved” or “all natural” doesn’t mean
they’re without negative environmental consequences

  • Mosquitos are most active at dawn and dusk, but companies typically spray during the day when most pollinators are active. These treatments are more likely to kill butterflies, bees and ladybugs in your yard at the time of application than the mosquitoes you’re trying to get rid of.
  • Sprays can only kill mosquitos that are in your yard at the time of spraying. Mosquitos typically fly 1-3 miles and will quickly re-populate your yard.
  • If the treatments target standing water, beneficial insects that eat mosquitos, like dragonfly larvae, will also be killed.
  • If the spray lands on wet areas like piles of wet leaves, chances are they’re killing far more fireflies than mosquitos.
  • Birds will often pick up insects killed by insecticides, and eat them or feed them to their young.
  • Most spray companies use insecticides known as pyrethrins, chemicals derived from chrysanthemums that are toxic to insects; or more frequently, pyrethroids, which are synthetic chemicals that mimic pyrethrins.
  • Whether natural or synthetic, pyrethrins and pyrethroids are broad spectrum insecticides that are highly toxic to a wide variety of insects, not just mosquitoes (Smith & Stratton, 1996) and synthetic pyrethroids and the chemicals they’re mixed with are designed to be even more lethal.
  • Pyrethroids are neuropoisons in humans, and can cause rashes, respiratory distress, allergic reactions, headache, nausea, convulsions, and more. In 2018, pyrethrins and pyrethroids accounted for over 33% of the pesticide calls to poison control, with an unknown number of other exposures unreported.
  • Pyrethroids are highly toxic to pollinators and even extremely small doses have been shown to disorient bees and prevent them from returning to their hive.
  • Researchers have documented widespread contamination of honey bee hives with toxic pyrethroids, finding chemical residues in pollen, beeswax, and on bees themselves, at levels that can be lethal to bees or cause harmful effects (Mullen et al, 2010).
  • Pyrethroids are toxic to fish and other aquatic life.
  • Pyrethroids can persist on surfaces for days.
  • The droplet size of a pesticide must be small and must float in the air, which means they also easily drift out of the target area, killing other insects or mingling into the air we breathe. 
  • Research shows that only 0.1% of sprayed pesticides on average reached the target pests, and when looking specifically at flying insects, like mosquitos, the average was less than 0.0001%, or only one in a million (Pimentel, 1995). 
  • Over time, mosquitos become resistant to pyrethroids through gene mutation. Mutations in just this one single gene are enough to make mosquitos in one area resistant to the pesticides very quickly. Companies that spray on a regular schedule will make your mosquito population become resistant even faster. So essentially, you’ll be left with a yard and neighborhood full of super skeeters.

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