I have just had a reply from Dan Norris MP in respect of the Early Day Motions 1996 and 1999. The reply that deals with Aminopyralid has nothing new to say.

However, I was completely taken aback by his comments on Clopyralid; "there have been no substantiated incidents involving clopyralid".
Even I know that Gardening Which was testing an organic liquid fertiliser from B&Q when they spotted the telltale distorted foliage of the plants treated with this fertiliser. Subsequent independent laboratory testing showed the presence of Clopyralid, which has now been confirmed by further tests done by B&Q.
Does anyone know of other substantiated incidents involving Clopyralid that I can quote in my reply to the Minister?

It's difficult to substantiate any clopyralid problems. It is an active chemical in Verdone+ lawn weedkiller which is an amateur product any effect would be likely to be apparent for just one person and links would be difficult to establish. It also covers itself by saying that lawn clippings taken after use should not be composted so even if the link was made the user is likely to just think it was their fault for not reading a lable and be unlikely to complain.

The real problem is that if grass clippings are not composted where will they go - in the green waste wheelie bins? Around our area they would refuse to collect the ordinary bin if lawn clippings were in there. It's likely that an amatuer gardener would assume that the process that green waste goes through would 'kill' the pronblem.

Last year one company withdrew a range of compost as it was contaminated and the theory was that this was because they used green waste in the preparation. They no longer use green waste. In fact in some cases it is now referred to as grey waste. This contamination could have been down to clopyralid but how on earth would a link be made?

There have however been earlier problems (from about 1999) in the US and Canada
see
http://www.tilthproducers.org/tpqpdfs/60.pdf
http://www.compostingcouncil.org/uploads/n23_2003.2_Summer.pdf (page 9)
http://agr.wa.gov/PESTFERT/Publications ... postfs.pdf[url][/url]
http://agr.wa.gov/pestfert/Pesticides/docs/WPID_Report.pdf very end of page 5 (clopyralid was banned for use on lawns and turf).

There are implications here for green waste and community composting schemes as it is difficult to monitor just what goes into them.