The world is going green. "Green" is your color of ecological stress, the impetus that drives cutting-edge technology, the buzzword of the conscious. Concern for the natural environment and man's impact on it's bringing a ton of new products to advertise pest control is no exception. Environmentally friendly pest control products and services are growing in popularity, particularly in the industrial sector. Even eco-savvy residential individuals are requesting about natural alternatives to pesticides that are traditional, however, their ardor often cools when faced with the 10 percent to 20% cost differential and longer therapy times, some times a few weeks.

The raising of America's environmental awareness, in conjunction with increasingly strict national regulations governing conventional chemical dyes, appears to be altering the pest control industry's attention to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques. Of 378 pest management organizations surveyed in 2008 by Pest Control Technology magazine, two-thirds said they offered IPM services of some sort.

Rather than jelqing pest internet sites with a noxious cocktail of powerful insecticides intended to kill, IPM is targeted on environmentally-friendly prevention techniques created to keep insects out. While low- or - no-toxicity services and products might also be utilised to support pests to package their bags, control and elimination efforts focus on finding and eliminating the source of infestation: entry points, attractants, harborage and food.

Notably popular with both schools and assisted living facilities charged with guarding the health of the world's youngest and oldest citizens, those at highest risk from toxic chemicals, IPM is catching the attention of hotels, office buildings, apartment complexes and other commercial enterprises, as well as low-income residential clients. Founded in equivalent portions by environmental concerns and health hazard fears, curiosity about IPM is bringing a plethora of fresh environmentally friendly pest control services and products -- both high- and low tech -- to promote.

"Probably the very best 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 on the past April,'' Green explained,"A mouse can squeeze through a gap the size of a pencil diameter. So in the event that you have found a quarter-inch gap underneath your doorway, as much as being a mouse is concerned, there's no door there at all." Cock Roaches can slither via a one eighth inch crevice.

IPM has been"an improved approach to pest control for the wellness of your home, the environment and the family," said Cindy Mannes,'' spokeswoman for the National Pest Management Association, the 6.3 billion pest control industry's trade association, in exactly the same Associated Press story. However, because IPM is still a rather recent addition into the pest control arsenal, Mannes cautioned that there is not much industry consensus on this is of green services.

IPM favors mechanical, cultural and physical procedures to control pests, but may use bio-pesticides produced from naturally occurring materials such as animals, plants, bacteria and certain minerals.

Hazardous chemical sprays are giving way to new, sometimes unconventional, methods of treating pests. Some are ultra high tech just like the quick freeze Cryonite process for eliminating bed bugs. The others, like trained dogs who snore bed bugs, seem decidedly low-tech, but apply advanced methods to achieve results. As an instance, farmers have used dogs' sensitive noses to sniff out pests for years and years; however, training dogs to sniff out explosives and drugs is a rather recent growth. Utilizing those very same approaches to teach dogs to sniff out termites and bed bugs will be recognized as cuttingedge.

Still another brand new pest control procedure is contraception. When bay area was threatened with mosquitoes carrying potentially lifethreatening West Nile Virus, bicycle messengers were hired to flee the city and shed packets of biological insecticide in to the city's 20,000 storm drains. A kind of contraceptive for mosquitoes, the newest method has been considered safer compared to aerial spraying with the compound pyrethrum, the typical mosquito abatement procedure, as per a recent report published within the National Public Radio website.

Naturallythere are efforts to build a better mousetrap. The advanced Track & Trap system brings mice or rats to your food station dusted with powder. Rodents render a blacklight-visible trail that allows pest control experts to secure entry paths. Coming soon, NightWatch uses pheromone research to trap and lure bed bugs. Back in England, a sonic device made to repel rodents and rats is being tested, and the aptly called Rat Zapper is purported to provide a lethal shock using only two AA batteries.


With this influx of fresh environmentally-friendly products rides a posse of national regulations. The EPA's 2004 banning of the compound diazinon for household usage a few years past removed a potent ant-killer from the homeowner's pest control toolbox. Similarly, 2008 EPA regulations forbidding the selling of small amounts of effective rodenticides, unless sold inside a specific trap, has stripped rodent-killing compounds from the shelves of both hardware and home improvement stores, limiting the homeowner's capacity to secure his property and family from these disease-carrying pests.

Acting for people good, the government's pesticide-control activities are particularly geared toward protecting children. According to a May 20, 2008 report CNN online, a report performed by the American Association of Poison Control Centers suggested that rat poison was responsible for almost 60,000 poisonings between 2001 and 2003, 250 of these resulting in serious injuries or death. National Wildlife Service testing in California found rodenticide residue in every creature tested.

Individuals are embracing the idea of pest control and environmentally-friendly, cutting-edge pest control products and processes. Availability and government regulations are increasingly limiting consumers' self-treatment choices, forcing them to turn to pest control businesses to get rest out of pest invasions. As this has established a viable choice for business customers, few residential clients seem willing to pay for high charges for newer, more labor intensive green pest control products and even fewer are willing to wait for the further week or two it may possibly take these items to work. It's taking leadership efforts on the part of pest control companies to educate consumers from the long-term benefits of green and natural pest control treatments.

Even though the cold, hard fact is that if individuals have a pest problem, they want it gone and so they want it gone now! If rats or mice have been in their residence destroying their property and threatening their family with disease, if termites or carpenter ants are eating their home equity, even in case roaches are invading their kitchen or should they are sharing their bed with bed bugs, even consumer interest in environmental friendliness plummets. When people call a pest control firm, the most important thing is they need the bugs dead! Now! Pest control firms are standing facing the wave of consumer requirement for prompt eradication by enhancing their natural and green pest control product offerings. These new all-natural products require the most responsible long-term strategy to pest control; the one that protects our environment, children, and also our own wellbeing. Some times it's alone moving against the wave of popular demand, but true leadership, in the pest control industry, means embracing these new natural technologies even when they are not popular with all the consumer - yet.