Where and How PMPs Go Green

Clark Pest Control, a Rollins company based in Lodi, Calif., has a service featuring green products. It’s not a big segment of the business, but it is one that is drawing more attention.

“We do see an increasing amount of both residential and commercial customers seeking out a green service and for different reasons,” said Blair Smith, the company’s technical manager.

According to the 2021 PCT State of the Naturals Market survey, PMPs were most likely to apply green control products in residential settings (83 percent), schools/daycare centers (44 percent) and commercial/office facilities (38 percent).

Most often, green products were applied indoors (65 percent), outdoors (58 percent) or at sensitive accounts (44 percent), including schools, hospitals and senior living facilities.

Smith said homeowners were learning about green options online and then asking about these offerings for their homes, while commercial clients tended be organic facilities that must adhere to strict protocols.

Awareness among residential consumers had the biggest jump: 42 percent of PMPs said green pest control products were more top of mind for residential customers than five years ago. That’s up from 36 percent of PMPs who felt this way in PCT’s 2019 survey.

PMPs said green products most commonly are used to control ants (53 percent), cockroaches (36 percent) spiders (35 percent) and occasional invaders (33 percent).

Matt Eickman, Abra Kadabra Environmental Services, said his green mosquito and tick control program featuring botanical products is a popular offering driven by specific concerns. “The kids and the pets and water, that’s where green really comes up a lot,” said Eickman.

It’s also a service he feels good providing. “It doesn’t feel right to me to spray a pyrethroid into a kid’s playground,” explained the father of two.

Twenty-nine percent of PMPs used green products to control mosquitoes, found the PCT survey.