Introduction

Garden Care Chemical products may be withdrawn from use for many reasons. In practice the most common reason is that a garden company will introduce a new product to replace an earlier product.

In addition since 1991 there has been an ongoing review of all garden (and agricultural chemicals) by the EU. This has resulted in and will continue to result in a number of products being revoked from use.

This means that after a certain date a product can no longer be sold and furthermore from a further date the product can no longer be used by the consumer. The product must then be disposed of safely. 

This does not mean that the product is considered immediately dangerous to the user or the environment. If it were considered dangerous then it would be withdrawn from sale and use immediately by the Pesticide Safety Directorate.

Updated Revocation List

The EU review programme is designed to ensure that garden chemicals meet the most up-to-date standards of human and environmental safety.  A chemical may be revoked either because:

• the manufacturer makes a commercial decision not to support the chemical, or
• the EU, following review, decides that the chemical should be withdrawn from the market

Details of all garden product withdrawals can be found at www.pesticides.gov.uk/approvals.asp?id=627

To determine whether a product has been withdrawn, first identify the name of the active substance in the product from the product label.  If you are unable to identify the active substance, contact the manufacturer. 

At www.pesticides.gov.uk/approvals.asp?id=627, there is a list of active substances being withdrawn, and for each of these, there is a link to a full list of withdrawn products containing the active substance.