What are the environmental benefits of natural weed killers?
Written by
Nguyen Minh
Reviewed by
Prof. Martin Thorne, Ph.D.How do you help protect rivers and streams with a prescription medication-type weed killer, even if you're not phobic to it? Use a natural weed killer instead. Chemical weed killers leave behind toxic runoff for years that does far-reaching harm to fish and aquatic plants in our rivers and streams. Nature's weed killers break down quickly and leave no poisons behind. I've seen the frogs return to my pond since I gave up the disgusting chemicals. Every time you apply this weed killer, you're helping our waterways!
Water Security
- Prevent chemical runoff contaminating drinking water sources
- Avoid groundwater pollution from synthetic herbicide residues
- Protect aquatic life in streams and ponds downstream
Biodiversity Conservation
- Save pollinators like bees from neurotoxic poisoning
- Preserve beneficial insects including ladybugs and lacewings
- Maintain bird populations that depend on healthy insect food chains
A healthy, vital soil is a boon to naturally controlling weeds. Beneficial mycorrhizal fungi and earthworms flourish. Microbial networks improve nutrient uptake for plants. My soils turned dark and rich in a matter of months. You enable living soil, and plants grow of their own accord.
It matters. That commercial herbicide you're buying is being sold in a disposal container that's destined for the landfill. The natural method utilizes refillable sprayers and encourages you to find recyclables within your own home. I use vinegar bottles for my weed-eradication, so you are also ridding your garden of single-use plastic trash.
Carbon emissions are down because many natural ingredients like vinegar, require no processing at all. Then there's the energy intensive factories producing the chemicals and the long transportation back and forth, trucked or mailed. Buying locally, often eliminates those added transport miles: I buy my vinegar by the gallon from local farms. You can quickly and dramatically shrink the carbon footprint of your own gardening efforts.
If you don't leave pools of synthetic salt water to your legacy, your descendants will have fertile, long-term land to use. The salt chemical residue will render the soil sterile, preventing it from supporting any plant growth. With the way I do things, your grandchildren will garden in the same soil that I did, and it will have improved.
Read the full article: 10 Natural Weed Killers That Work
