'Dead more than neat,' Tramore Eco Group call for an end to cosmetic weed spraying
Cosmetic spraying around trees in Tramore.
Tramore Eco Group is asking for people to reconsider what they think of a tidy garden.
They say that while the council does great work in the area of biodiversity, including leaving wild areas, they have noticed an increase in cosmetic spraying both in public and private spaces.
Chairperson Catherine Twomey, Ecologist Katriina Bent and Permaculturist Damian Nicholls spoke to the Waterford News and Star about the impact weedkillers are having on pollinators and ultimately humans.
Cosmetic spraying is the use of chemical pesticides to kill wildflowers in an effort to make an area “tidier.”
This can be anywhere, but it is usually around hard surfaces like walls, lamp posts, and paths.
Catherine said that while it may be necessary to use chemicals on invasive species in some cases, there is no aesthetic advantage to them in public spaces or homes.
But leaving areas of native wildflowers means pollinators have less far to go to find food and more variety to forage.
“People have a difficulty with that because they want the place to look neat and tidy.
“You know it looks dead neat but dead more than neat,” said Catherine.
And if you thought this is a matter of man versus nature, you are dead wrong.
Pollinators are essential for human food production.
“We need bees to pollinate 70-75% of our food crops worldwide. Without the bees, we will have no apples, no pears, no strawberries, no raspberries, no carrots, no leeks, no onions, no tomatoes, no chocolate, no coffee.
“They are all pollinated by insects and many more besides,” said Catherine.
Damian said he is currently teaching pupils in a local school about the role of bees in food production, and if you had to put a money figure on the work pollinators do, you would be very surprised.
“If bees charged the government for the work they did in food pollination in Ireland, how much do you think they would charge the government? €59 million is what the bees would charge us,” said Damian.
As well as that, your lovely garden would be nowhere without your friendly neighbourhood bees.
“You might want to buy in plants or vegetable seeds, and at some point, a pollinator will have had to do its job and pollinate that flower to allow that seed to be created to turn into a plant.
“So the impact is huge. You might be a couple of steps removed, but we are all impacted,” said Damian.
According to a 20-year research project, called Plant Atlas 2020 and published by the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI), 56% of wildflowers have declined since the 1950s, and non-native plants outnumber native ones.
This means less food for pollinators like bees.
This is for a variety of reasons, including climate change, but one of the main factors and easily addressed is the rise in cosmetic spraying.
“We feel, especially in residential and urban areas, that cosmetic spraying is pointless and that it is putting them under further pressure. And that is exactly what is happening in public areas and in private areas,” said Catherine.
And while your go-to weedkiller may use the word targeted, it is anything but.
Katriina said there is a common misunderstanding of how chemicals like glyphosate move through a system.
They don’t stay put and do their job.
They sink into the soil, damaging underground wildlife, and when it rains, they can be spread across an area, ending up in water systems, food, and even seeds that have never come in contact with the spray.
Not only that, but they persist for weeks to kill off any new plants that might germinate.
This has devastating effects on bees.
“There is recent evidence in research on the impact to pollinators like bumblebees - you could call it bumblebee dementia, it causes confusion and what happens is when the bee is effected by pesticides, they either forget where their food, where their foraging areas are, or if they find their foraging areas, they forget how to get back to their nest,” said Katriina.
Glyphosate has been controversial for a while now and has been linked to a number of diseases and health conditions in humans.
While we are not yet certain of its effects on the body, new research suggests you don’t have to spray it to have it in your body.
A 2023 study led by the University of Galway of 226 people (68 families), including farmers spraying glyphosate and those who did not, 26% had a presence of the chemical in their urine, and 59% had associated metabolite AMPA in their sample.
The study was the first of its kind and measured the spread of glyphosate in human bodies.
But it’s not just glyphosate.
Catherine says organic weedkillers that use vinegar have high levels of acetic acid, which can also kill the bees.
The key message the group wants to get across is that creating corridors of wildflowers for pollinators is easy and just as beneficial to humans as it is to bees.
At home, this means leaving the edges of footpaths for plants like birdfoot trefoil, dandelion, red dead nettle, and common fumitory, which are essential food sources for bees.
“The good old dandelion. The first and foremost in Ireland for all pollinators.
"So it is literally the one plant people hate, but it’s the first food plant that emerges after the winter, and it’s the source for the queens who start the colony and the welfare really of the whole population depends on that early foraging and the dandelion,” said Katriina.
If you must mow, mow less and if an overgrown lawn makes you anxious, try taking part in initiatives like No Mow May.
Never spray and rethink what you consider tidy.
Another thing you can do is get to know your native wildflowers.
Catherine said weeds are fascinating as well as important for the ecosystem.
“Don’t just write them off as weeds. They have a fascinating history. They were used medicinally, for food, in folklore down through the years,” said Catherine.
And lastly, talk to your council.
Catherine said praise them when they get it right and call for more biodiversity measures.
The Tramore Eco Group said they would love to see no-spray towns in Waterford.
Kilsheelan in Tipperary and Dún Laoghaire Rathdown have already made the switch, and if they can, the Déise definitely can.
Damian said that the council gets a lot of complaints, so it's important for the voices of people who want more biodiversity measures to speak up.
“Get in touch with the councillors and start asking for what you want,” said Damian.
That said, it's not all bad news, and the Tramore Eco Group would know.
The group, in collaboration with Waterford City and County Council, are responsible for the meadow on the Estuary Road in Tramore.
The meadow has been praised nationally and features in information booklets by the National Biodiversity Data Centre.
One good little news story from the meadow is the expansion of the habitat of the large carder bee.
The large carder bee is yellow and orange and Damian said if you are lucky enough to see one, it will be the biggest bee you have ever seen.
The bee lives in the sand dunes and has been confined there until recently.
But the Tramore Eco Group says there have been sightings of the bee this year on the Estuary Road and on the Cliff Road.
“So if that bee is doing well, you can guarantee lots and lots of other insects are doing well,” said Damian.
That is true because another sand dune bee, the Northern Colletes, has also been spotted in places it wouldn’t usually be.
This means they have access to more food and their habitat is expanding.
The meadow project is in its fourth year, and Katriina said it came about because Tramore Eco Group wanted to see if it could be done.
And it was way easier than they thought.
The group allows native plants to grow and removes ones, like dock, that are likely to take over.
The council manages the meadow in June, July and August, cutting paths through the meadow and taking away the material cut by the eco group.
This means more variety of plants for the wildlife that rely on them.
“It was actually amazing how quickly it had an impact,” said Katriina.
The carder bee is a species that has benefited greatly from the meadow.
But its recent signs of success, according to Katriina, show how important it is to protect the sand dunes.
The Tramore Eco Group has been, over the past year, building chestnut fencing on the dunes to stop people climbing up or sliding down them.
This activity on the dunes causes erosion and disturbs the marram grass essential for keeping the dunes together.
“It also shows the importance of the sand dunes as a gene pool. It’s a pool of species and genetic material; if that were to go, it could never be recovered.
“So dune protection is important and creating these corridors and the possibilities for dispersal is just as important,” said Katriina.
