Gardeners urged 'check sheds' as legal warning issued over slug pellets

Gardeners who have slug pellets in their cupboards, sheds or greenhouses have been warned they need to check them because they may now be totally illegal to use.

The little blue tablets (not that kind) have long been used by gardeners as a means of pest control in the ongoing war being waged with slugs and snails every year.

While slugs and snails were banished underground during the hot and sunny weather over the summer, the autumn is when their populations blow up all over again as colder, wetter weather becomes the norm and darker days give them plenty of cover to slime their way out and start eating up your garden all over again.

But gardeners are being warned that they could be breaking the law if they keep certain slug pellets in their shed following a law change in 2022.

Slug pellets with a chemical called metaldehyde were banned in the UK in 2022.

Not only is it illegal to use them, it's even illegal to STORE the banned slug pellets, as well as to supply them or sell them.

Anyone with slug pellets is being urged to check the bottle and safely throw away the product if it contains metaldehyde because it was sold before 2022.

On top of that, gardeners are being urged to report any seller still selling metaheldyde slug pellets to their local council.

The pellets were banned due to being toxic to birds and hedgehogs, not just slugs.

Slug predators eat the slugs and snails and indirectly ingest the poison themselves, and it can cause the important and increasingly endangered species of hedgehods and birds to be killed by accident.

As Hedgehog Street explains: "Metaldehyde is a molluscicide, meaning it is used to eradicate slugs and snails, usually from gardens and farmland. The substance can however also cause harm to birds and mammals through direct ingestion or consumption of contaminated molluscs.

"Although slugs don't form a large part of a hedgehog's natural diet, the effects of this product have long been a concern. We therefore welcome this change and continue to encourage organic gardening."