SHOULD YOU WEAR GLOVES AND A MASK — OR JUST SWAP PRODUCTS?

SO HOW can you minimise your exposure to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup?

When it comes to domestic use, the fact is glyphosate is found in many of the UK’s top-selling weedkillers, including Vitax WeedFree Spray for ‘general weeds’ and Doff Weed Killer.

Some of the most popular brands contain other herbicides as well as glyphosate: Weedol Rootkill Plus, for example, which is marketed for use on general weeds, contains a newer type of herbicide, pyraflufen ethyl, which the manufacturers say is particularly effective against broadleafed weeds.

Resolva Path & Patio Spray, meanwhile, contains glyphosate as well as diquat, a type of herbicide the makers say harms only part of the plant it is sprayed on, while Jobdone Tough

Weedkiller contains both glyphosate and the herbicide diflufenican.

The brands themselves carry advice about wearing protective gloves, and some recomwell mend masks, as was washing off splashes on skin immediately.

The Royal Horticultural Society website also recommends gardeners avoid spraying on windy days and only using chemicals if com(it pletely necessary says many weeds can be

controlled by hoeing, mulching, mowing and digging). However, Sir Colin Berry, emeritus professor of pathology at Queen Mary, University of London, insists the level of exposure most gardeners would get is almost certainly too small to damage their health.

‘There is no risk at all from gardening,’ says Professor Berry, who is a former chairman of the UK Advisory Committee on Pesticides and has previously worked as a consultant for Monsanto, which makes Roundup. ‘I use it in my garden all the time.’ Likewise, any exposure through consuming weedkiller residue on plant foods is negligible, he says.

However, there are other products that kill weeds without resorting to glyphosate, such as Ecofective Weed Blast. Its main active ingredient is acetic acid, the chemical that gives vinegar its characteristic sharp taste.