April 2021 – Blogs to keep termites and insects away from plastics

Heritage monuments are antique and culturally significant!

They essentially reflect a country’s culture and tradition. These buildings have old significance due to the architectural beauty and their correlation to key moments such as ritual, political and cultural events in the domain of historic roots.

But did you know termites spent years feasting on these majestic structures!

Termite infestations seem to be a threat at many historic sites for decades. Factors such as termite adaptability, complexities, and limitations of conventional pest control product efficacy; termites became a serious threat to those magnificent monuments.

Termites are social insects that live in colonies and spread all over the world. Their colonies feast on cellulose 24×7 which is mainly found in wood. Cellulose can provide the essential nutrients required for their growth.

The experimental results suggest that “a colony of 200,000 can consume up to 12 pounds of cellulose per year.”

Before evidence of infestation is observed, colonies of a range of hundreds to several thousand may result in substantial damage to heritage buildings. Termites can dig up tunnels close to the edge of a ravaged structure to slash the last coating of paint and other material to acquire food. They eat continuously throughout the day as a result they invade the whole heritage structure without being noticed. They chew on wallpaper, paints, wooden articles, and even the books which represent our evolving behavior and events of the past.

These are some recent incidents where termites are blamed for the damage caused to heritage sites!

Termite damage to force demolition of the historic log cabin in Hamilton

Due to termite attacks, a historic log cabin that Hamilton officials hoped could be restored to function as a residence will have to be torn down. The city called for proposals to redevelop the cabin, which is thought to date from the 1800s, earlier this year. When three city workers took a prospective developer to see it, 223 and 225 S. C St. in the historic Rossville area, the city’s top building inspector, Ken Rivera, found termite damage and advised his colleagues that the structure needed to be demolished because it was in danger of collapsing.

Termites damage Hoi An’s historic relics

Termites are threatening many relics in the old quarter of Hoi An ancient town, a UNESCO-recognized world heritage, local authorities, and residents have reported. A survey by the Institute of Ecology and Works Protection in collaboration with the Hoi An Cultural Heritage Conservation Management Centre (CHCMC) recently revealed 265 of the 800 historical relics in the old quarter of Hoi An Town have some levels of termite problems.
The survey said these relics have been severely damaged since the recent COVID-19 social distancing last July. They also issued an urgent warning that solutions should be needed immediately to prevent the damage and keep the termites away, or the relics would be destroyed in a short time. Pham Phu Ngoc, Director of the CHCMC, said the termites had caused rapid degradation of the relics. The official added that after each rainy season, the weather changed, causing humidity that helped termites appear more in the wooden relics.
Due to climate change, the weather is increasingly erratic, creating favorable conditions for termites to develop and impact relics very quickly, according to Ngoc.

These incidents proved that termites are a serious hurdle for heritage sites!

Many insecticide barrier and baiting technologies have been tried and tested to control the population of termites every method comes with its drawbacks. Termite baits take a long time to eliminate their population. Historic structures often are located in sensitive areas so spraying toxic insecticides may contaminate natural habitats. Also, it may cause damage to historic relics.

In Cho-ho Ji, a 500-yr-old Buddhist temple in Wakayama, Japan, wooden gates were irreversibly stained by the liquid insecticides.

Conventional pest control methods may give a faster result by killing a small number of termites at the treatment site, but it only drives termites from one part of the property to another without affecting the overall population.

Along with termites, birds are well-known for causing damage to these precious monuments. Uric acid is released from their excrement which leads to stonework corrosion and these corrosive effects can continue for a long time after the stone has been contaminated, even if the fouling is removed.

So how we can mitigate those creepy pests for long period without affecting the ecosystem?

We at C Tech Corporation have devised a sensible approach!

Our product Termirepel™ is a perfect blend of green chemistry and smart technology. It does not kill, only repels. It is environmentally friendly and does not affect insects, humans, or the ecosystem in any way.

Termirepel™ is an extremely low-toxic, extremely low-hazard, bio-safe anti-termite and insect aversive that is effective against termites and works well on a wide range of insects including crazy ants, bedbugs, cockroaches, etc. It is an insect repellent with a wide range of repellence tactics that efficiently keep insects at bay!

Termirepel™ is available in various forms such as masterbatch, liquid concentrate, lacquer, wood polish additive, and spray.

The masterbatch can be incorporated with polymeric applications such as wires and cables, pipes, films while manufacturing. This will make the application safe from pest attacks.

The liquid concentrate can be mixed with paint in a pre-determined ratio and can be applied on interior and exterior walls of buildings and structures. Our liquid concentrate is compatible with all types of paints and solvents.

The lacquer is a topical application and it is compatible with most of the surfaces such as polymer, wood, ceramic, metal, and concrete. The lacquer can be applied directly to statues, flooring, and other precious structures.

The wood polish additive can be blended with wood polish and can be applied on wooden articles such as staircases, storage compartments, bookshelves, etc. to prevent them from wood-eating insects.

The Termirepel™ spray can be sprayed directly on any infested area to prevent the damage caused by insects.

Our bird-repellent gel lacquer is non-corrosive, waterproof, and compatible with most of the surfaces it can be applied on statues and monuments, window ledges, roofing, etc. where birds roost or perch.

The bye-bye birdy spray can be sprayed directly on the surface to prevent birds from roosting.

Using our products you can repel pests in an environmentally friendly way!

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http://www.rodrepel.com/

http://www.termirepel.com/

http://www.combirepel.com/

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Ants like to build nests in the electrical and wiring systems of your household. They build nests and if they find access to food and water sources, they can easily thrive in the dingiest of spaces. Electrical outlets, wires and cables can provide them very comfortable living space. Ants are weirdly attracted to electric hardware as well as electricity and in the process cause critical damage to these systems. The aromatic polymers that most of the electrical appliances are made of attract the ants. However, the exact reason for the affinity towards electricity is unknown.

The destructive power of these tiny ants is huge. When they come in large numbers around electrical boxes and outlets, they start chewing on the sheathing present on the wires. After degrading the protective sheathing, they have a high chance of coming in direct contact with electricity, leading to them getting electrocuted. When ants die, they release a pheromone that is perceived by other ants as a signal to detect danger. When other worker ants get the scent, they come to the same place to rescue the ants in danger, thereby getting electrocuted themselves during the process and sending out more pheromone signals. This makes a repetitive cycle with more and more ants coming near the wirings. The build-up of dead ants will cause blockage and eventual breakdown of the system, which can prove to be very dangerous due to the possibility of a short circuit or system failure occurring.

Apart from this, ants also build nests around electrical systems and wirings inside walls. They use wet and moist mud, dirt and other debris that they collect from the outdoors to build these nests. The moisture will definitely harm the wirings and can lead to power failures and blackouts. The waste and dead bodies they leave behind act as corrosive agents for the wires for the electrical contacts and boxes.

Conventional insecticides used to kill these ants have proven to be an ineffective solution. Apart from these insecticides being extremely toxic in nature, the sprays and other killing materials used have been seen to attract other species of insects to eat the ant carcasses left behind. These toxic sprays also kill non-target species and are hazardous to us humans. Moreover, certain species of ants like the crazy ants are not at all affected by the toxic effects of these insecticides.

“New Ant Species Arrives With a Taste for Electronics, Scientists Say”

There’s a new player on the continent and it is spreading damage from Texas to Florida in a scary assault that sounds like a really bad movie.

“Crazy” ants on the march have a taste for everything from livestock to electrical equipment. They are so obnoxious that many residents yearn for the good old days when all they had to fight was red ants that are quickly being wiped out by the crazies.

The tiny insect is called “crazy” because the trail it leaves as it eats its way across the country is so erratic it appears the ants have tipped the bottle too many times.

Scientists know it as Nylanderia fulva, but its commonly accepted name is “tawny crazy ant,” formerly known as the raspberry crazy ant.

It doesn’t sting, but it has an annoying bite that can scare wildlife away — and, unlike its more famous cousin, the red ant, it is highly invasive, infesting homes, recreational vehicles, transformers and any laptop or smart phone left in its path.

Both reds and crazies and a few other species share a peculiar attraction to electrical wiring and components, and no one is sure why. The damages can be extreme. In one year alone, researchers documented $146.5 million in damages to electrical equipment just in Texas.

How they cause that damage also sounds like a really bad movie. One ant finds its way into a transformer and grazes against a hot wire. It gets electrocuted, and immediately “waves its abdomen in the air (called gaster flagging) to release its own brand of perfume, which lures many more ants to the scene.

Another species, called acrobat ants, infiltrated an air conditioner in Austin, Texas, causing it to malfunction and costing the homeowner $196.54.

“Perhaps the biggest deal is the displacement of the fire ant,” LeBrun said, in releasing his study. “The whole ecosystem has changed around fire ants. Things that can’t tolerate fire ants are gone. Many that can have flourished.

New things have come in. Now we are going to go through and whack the fire ants and put something in its place that has a very different biology. There are going to be a lot of changes that come from that.”

“Why ‘Crazy Ants’ Swarm Inside Electronics”

“Exterminator Mike Matthews got the call because the home’s air-conditioning unit had short-circuited. Why an exterminator for a problem with an appliance? Because of the crazy ants.

Matthews has seen crazy ants disable scores of air-conditioning units near Austin, Texas, where the invasive creatures have been a real headache. The ants swarm inside the units, causing them to short-circuit and preventing them from turning on. Often the switches inside them need to be replaced, thanks to the ants, said Matthews.

“When you open these things up, you see thousands of the ants, just completely filling them up,” Matthews said.

The ants first appeared in the United States in 2002 but have become more of a menace in the past few years, spreading to many areas of the Gulf Coast, particularly Texas and Florida. The ants are obnoxious because they reproduce in large numbers, sometimes outnumbering all other ants 100-to-1. That’s a problem since ecosystems depend on a wide variety of ants to perform different tasks; domination by one species is highly unusual, said Edward LeBrun, a researcher at the University of Texas. As the ants have advanced into new habitats, they’ve had the annoying habit of swarming inside electronics, like air conditioners and farm equipment likes pumps and occasionally destroying them, LeBrun told LiveScience.”

C Tech Corporation has come up with its extremely low in toxicity and low hazard product, Termirepel™ to protect the electrical application and cables from these ravenous insects.

It is an environmentally safe product that works by repelling ants and other insects without causing any harm to the target or non-target species. Termirepel™ is available in form of a solid masterbatch which can be safely incorporated into the polymeric insulation of wires and cables while manufacturing or coated on surfaces to keep crazy ants away from the application.

Termirepel™ is also available in the form of liquid concentrate and lacquer. The liquid concentrate can be easily blended with paints and organic solvents and can be applied to already installed wires and cables, sockets, electric board, etc. The lacquer is an easy-to-use topical applicant that is transparent and will effectively stop the ants as well as other insects from chewing on or damaging the wires and cables.

The wood polish additive variant can be mixed with wood polish and coated on the wooden switchboards and boxes. It will prevent the insects from entering the box altogether.

Our newly developed product in the form of a spray can be applied to already installed wires and cables, it is compatible with all types of surface and can be sprayed by anyone without even the use of protection gears.