The Devil You Know

 

My next door neighbor is on the roof sweeping away pine needles. Which reminds me that I might as well pencil in a date with the ladder and broom myself. Pine needles gather on the shingles giving moss a place too take root. It's an annual battle.

So now that she has the roof swept is she putting a safe effective product formalized for the specific purpose of killing moss? No. I guess the warnings on the label made her think that it was just too dangerous to use iron or zinc sulfate. Chlorine kills anything, but who wants to work around that?

The current 'Chemicals are evil' mentality is certainly a failure of our education system. My neighbor is a smart, well educated woman, but guess what she is putting on her roof to kill moss? Laundry detergent.

Laundry detergent. Sounds safe and effective, but put a teaspoon of it in the palm of your hand, add a bit of water and feel the burn. Jerry regularly pours detergent straight on to his shirts before adding water to the wash, and regularly ends up ruining them. Read the detergent label and you will find the same warnings about eye or skin contact and environmental hazards on your detergent box as on the Moss B Ware carton.

But something formulated to kill moss seems so much more toxic than something formulated to wash your clothes. I can't tell my neighbor that the plants under her eaves are going to end up just as dead from the run off. She uses this product on clothes that cradle her baby's cheeks.

And I wouldn't be surprised if it did a second rate job of killing moss. I wonder what would happen if every piece of information on environmental issues began with a logic test.

Nancy Sherer

 

 


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