I just watched an ad promoting the RoundUp Pump — or something like that — a device that you pump up, and then simply pull the trigger and stream out “kill.”

The competition in the ad is between a hand-sprayer, and the Pump. “5 minutes of continuous spray” they say. They show the weeds growing between concrete. The hand-sprayer loses, with a cramp. The Pump wins, killing off driveway weeds.

And I think of that chemical, draining off the driveway, going into the waterway. And think about what that chemical — designed to kill plants — might do when it drains away. It’s designed to kill. Or, diluted, weaken.

Yeah, dilution. Yeah, it’s only one driveway.

But it’s also “yeah, I’m going to spray this bit of continuing death onto the world, so I don’t have to lean over.”

Weeds? It’s only nature trying to re-integrate with us. Surely we can lean over, and pull up the weed, instead of spraying continuing death. Heck, plant it back where you don’t mind it being — it’ll feel better. But jeez, as part of recovery, we have to start changing the idea that we can just pound on weeds — of any kind — with chemicals, without damaging everything else too.

Tags: plant relationships, roundup, sanity, sustainability

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Originally posted on Friday, March 21st, 2008 at 8:33 pm. Filed under Biome Breach, Recovery. Follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 RSS feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.