Responding to news that the Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee is calling for a ban on the general sale of off-the-shelf and unchecked online pet treatments for fleas and ticks, George Duncan Jones, Biodiversity Policy Lead at Greenpeace UK said: 

"It's heartening to see the Environment and Climate Change Committee taking this issue seriously. 

"There's a reason these toxic chemicals are banned in agriculture, so banning their sale as part of over-the-counter flea treatments is long overdue. A single monthly dose containing these chemicals for a large dog is enough to kill 25 million bees. [1]  When our pets take a dip in a river or owners give them a bath, they can easily end up in our waterways posing a huge threat to wildlife. 

"As long as we expose Britain's waterways to the toxic side effects of these chemicals, their condition will continue to deteriorate. Reining in the use of these treatments is a crucial step towards cleaning up our degraded river systems and allowing life to flourish again in the water."

[1] Our Poisoned Land: How pesticides and fertilisers have pushed British nature to the brink - Greenpeace UK