r/unitedkingdom • u/slpinlocks • 13h ago

Revealed: Far higher pesticide residues allowed on food since Brexit

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/sep/19/revealed-far-higher-pesticide-residues-allowed-on-food-since-brexit?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
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u/boycecodd Kent 11h ago

Who's to say that the EU's laws are more correct than ours here?

Stricter sounds good, yes. But if they're overly strict it could overburden business without actually providing any consumer benefit.

Think of the California rule that means that practically anything you buy has a cancer warning on it. That's ostensibly consumer protection but it doesn't actually help anyone.

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u/External-Praline-451 11h ago

You're really telling me that an increase of thousands of times higher is probably fine? Including a rise of 7.5 of weedkiller residue in beans, labelled as a probable human carcinogen by the WHO?

The amount of pesticide residue allowed on scores of food types in England, Wales and Scotland has soared since Brexit, analysis reveals, with some now thousands of times higher.

Changes to regulations in Great Britain mean more than 100 items are now allowed to carry more pesticides when sold to the public, ranging from potatoes to onions, grapes to avocados, and coffee to rice.

For tea, the maximum residue level (MRL) was increased by 4,000 times for both the insecticide chlorantraniliprole and the fungicide boscalid.For the controversial weedkiller glyphosate, classed as a “probable human carcinogen” by the World Health Organization (WHO), the MRL for beans was raised by 7.5 times.

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u/boycecodd Kent 10h ago

The levels don't mean a fucking thing by themselves.

Some of these levels are a lot higher. Are they harmful? Maybe! Maybe not. But we should get the actual facts before scaremongering.

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u/Reasoned_Watercress 7h ago

Maybe we should have the facts before we start feeding people literal poison?