Changing public behaviours on home turf: A study of the Halifax Regional Municipality pesticide by-law

Many Canadian communities have implemented pesticide by-laws, and more are likely to pass by-laws in the future. Halifax Regional Municipality has had a pesticide by-law in place since 2000. It appears to have been successful in reducing residential, cosmetic pesticide use. The goal of this thesis was to gather information from residents that would be helpful to communities planning pesticide education and awareness campaigns. This was accomplished using a mail survey.

The results showed that awareness of the by-law is high. Print media was identified as the most common source of information respondents had seen or heard. The majority of participants felt that the information they had seen or heard had affected their lawn care practices. The results showed a considerable drop in pesticide use in HRM (from 57% in 2002 to 19% in 2005). Family, friends and neighbours were found to be an important source of lawn care information.