Middletown Residents Hear the Message: "Get Your Lawn off Drugs! "

"Chemical Reaction" Draws Crowd at MxCC

Over fifty people came out last night in the rain to watch “A Chemical Reaction”, an inspirational documentary about the dangerous health effects of lawn chemicals and one community’s successful campaign to ban them in Canada. The film follows Paul Tukey, a former lawn care practitioner and founder of SafeLawns, on his path across the country and into Canada to spread the word about the dangers of lawn chemicals and how to have beautiful, lush lawns organically. Paul’s own health was affected from using lawn chemicals and at his doctor’s advice he made a transition to organic methods. He now has extensive experience maintaining organic lawns. Through the movie Paul tracked the progress of Dr. June Irwin’s efforts to ban lawn care chemicals from her town due to the medical problems she was seeing in her patients. The ban passed, was upheld by the Canadian Supreme Court and eventually spread all across Canada.

After the film Scott Reil, a Connecticut accredited nurseryman, organic lawn care professional, and representative of SafeLawns, led a discussion on organic lawn care. He answered many questions ranging from how to make the switch to organics, to how to deal with poison ivy, and whether crabgrass really is bad for your lawn. Scott also maintains the website, helpfulgardener.com, which offers useful information on organic gardening.