Dip Disposal Treatments Help Farmers Minimise Pollution Risk

There is now a disposal treatment for each of the active ingredients of spent sheep dips to ensure that any small risk of accidental pollution is reduced even further.

The recent launch of a sodium hydroxide based treatment method for high-cis-cypermethrin has completed the range of methods developed to degrade spent dip in the bath before disposal. Farmers can use slaked lime (hydrated lime) to hydrolyse diazinon and flumethrin, and sodium hypochlorite 10% to treat propetamphos dips. The correct method must be used for each specific ingredient.

The degraded dipwash can then be disposed of by a reputable contractor or by spraying on a suitable area of land, as recommended on the label.

'Animal health companies have produced a range of effective products to combat sheep ectoparasites, not just dips but pour-ons and injections too. It is essential that each farmer chooses the right product for his farm circumstances: the parasites to be controlled, the preferred method of application and the particular environmental and disposal situation of the farm,' said NOAH director Roger Cook.

'Farmers already show the same responsible attitude to the environment in which they live and work as they do to the health of the animals under their care. Guidelines for the disposal of sheep dips are in general use and, considering there are around 93000 sheep flocks in the UK, accidental pollution incidents are rare. However, dip manufacturers want to reduce the risk even further and this development, meaning that there is now a degradation method for every type of dip active, will help to achieve this,' he said.

1 August 1997

Notes for Editors

1. For further information contact Roger Cook or Alison Glennon at NOAH, tel. +44 (0)181 367 3131
2. The National Office of Animal Health was formed on 1 January 1986 to represent the UK companies that research, develop, manufacture and market licensed animal health products. The association represents 57 companies which in 1996 accounted for around 95% of the £344 million UK animal health market.
3. Guidelines for the disposal of dips are published as the MAFF/WOAD Code of Good Agricultural Practice for the Protection of Water and the Environment Agency leaflet Pollution Prevention Guidelines, Sheep Dipping PPG12.
4. The HSE/VMD leaflet AS29 'Sheep dipping' also contains useful information on use and disposal, as does NOAH's book, 'Animal Medicines, A User's Guide', available from NOAH for £7.50.