Public Awareness Campaign – Alternatives to Pesticides

The City of Toronto chose Public Interest to coordinate the 2006 Go Natural public education and awareness campaign for the City of Toronto’s Pesticide By-Law, which restricts the outdoor use of harmful pesticides. We helped create new communications material to emphasize the availability of natural, retailer-supported lawn care products and approaches. We also organized retailer outreach and in-store educational activities in order to promote natural and healthy lawn care alternatives and to raise customer awareness of the by-law. Based on our recommendations from the successful 2006 campaign, Toronto Public Health has offered training to retailers to support their understanding of the by-law and refocused its website communications materials for the public. Toronto Public Health has also awarded us the opportunity to coordinate the 2007 and 2008 campaigns.