Roundup ingredient connected to epidemic levels of chronic kidney disease
by GMWatch, October 13, 2023

Hard water is contaminated with glyphosate complexes in Sri Lankan communities plagued by chronic kidney disease

For the past couple of decades, tens of thousands of people living in rural Sri Lanka have been devastated by kidney failure due to unclear causes, also known as CKDu. Similar incidences of mysterious kidney diseases have emerged in tropical farming communities around the world. A massive field study of the wells supplying drinking water to the Sri Lankan communities, conducted by researchers at Duke University, has identified a possible culprit – glyphosate, the active compound in Roundup, the most widely used herbicide in the world. The results of the study were published in Environmental Science and Technology Letters on September 13, 2023.

"It was always thought that this chemical would break down very quickly in the environment, but it seems to stick around a lot longer than we expected when it complexes in hard water," said Nishad Jayasundara, the Juli Plant Grainger Assistant Professor of Global Environmental Health at Duke. "We have to consider how glyphosate is interacting with these other elements, and what happens to glyphosate when you take that into your body as a complex."

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Glyphosate Alternatives Set to Take Market by Storm as Non-Toxic Weed Control Attracts Farmers, Gardeners and Investors
by Sustainable Pulse, October 3, 2023

Glyphosate-based herbicides are the most popular form of weed control in the world but times are changing and there is a surge in interest amongst both farmers and gardeners in alternatives, which instead of damaging the environment and public health, can help to nurture them.

Sustainable Pulse has been doing a deep dive on the most impressive companies in the non-toxic weed control space and has come across two that stand head and shoulders above the crowd, Contact Organics (available in Australia, New Zealand and the U.S.) and RootWave (available in the UK and EU). We sat down to talk to the CEOs of both companies:

Read the full story  Sustainable Pulse