The Manitoba government's plan to make changes to the cosmetic-use pesticide ban largely won't change the city of Portage la Prairie's non-chemical approach to lawn maintanence.

According to multiple reports, the province plans to introduce new regulations to replace the costmetic pesticide ban before the end of 2017, after a majority of respondents in a public review process expressed dissatisfaction with the current legislation. The previous NDP government passed cosmetic pesticide ban legislation in 2015 to restrict the use of certain lawn care chemicals in the province.

City parks manager Dave Green says the department transitioned away from using pestcides for public lawn care years before the legislation was enacted in 2015. Since the ban, the parks department has used methods such as cornmeal gluten application for dandelion control and increased mowing frequency for overall weed control. There are currently no lawn pesticides in the city's use application.

"The city's view would be that we would only use the pesticides in an extreme case and it's really going to depend on what the new proposed regulations would say," explains Green. "We'll have to study it once we hear more about it."

"But, in general, we're much happier to do the non-chemical route. We've been able to live with it fairly well."