On 22/08/2016 16:51, James Wilkinson wrote:
On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 09:11:26 +0100, Martin Brown
wrote:

On 21/08/2016 21:38, James Wilkinson wrote:
On Sun, 21 Aug 2016 21:18:29 +0100, Stewart Robert Hinsley
wrote:

On 21/08/2016 20:46, James Wilkinson wrote:
I just watched this, and he claims it kills 90% of weeds
instantly. So

Its the remaining 10% of each and every weed that grows back again. You
can find plenty of clueless idiots on the internet claiming all sorts of
gibberish. If you put enough table salt on weeds it will kill them.

90% sounds bloody good to me. I've tried various weedkillers and
nothing achieved anything like that.

90% of the weed might be dead but the 10% is still alive.
Stupid is as stupid does. More fool you if you believe his crap.

why does anyone use weedkiller? Isn't this cheaper, easier, and more
effective?

https://youtu.be/qm_X-XBINCs

It's effectively the same as using a weed wand, except that a weed wand
is more portable, and I would assume is safer.

But I'd have to buy one, I already have a kettle.

Stupid is as stupid does. It is hard to beat glyphosate for economic
control of weeds as a general purpose weedkiller. Boiling water will use
hundreds of times more resources to do the same job.

Nope, costs very little to boil loads of kettles. Just over a penny a
litre, even with electricity. No weedkiller is anything like that cheap.

Depends how you use it.
Generic glyphosate is way cheaper for a bulk kill when used correctly.

Which I already have to do with weedkiller. Despite what they say,
weedkiller does not last long at all.

Depends on the weedkiller although the ones that are persistent have
mostly been banned now for domestic use as they were abused. The new
formulations of pathclear are good for most of a season but some weeds
are immune to the new germination inhibitors.

A good one was paraquat, the electricity board used it around their
substations. Unfortunately it gave everyone cancer (and the idiots
blamed the magnetism....)

No it didn't. The reason paraquat was banned is because it is
exceedingly toxic to humans and became the suicide poison of choice.

It was a particularly nasty one too since just as the suicide patient
was seemingly about to recover and want to live just as they died of
multiple organ failure. Extoxnet allows that the stuff might possibly be
carcinogenic in humans but the acute toxicity was the reason for the ban.

(The video claims it kills the roots, but doesn't offer any evidence.)

I'm not so sure burning with gas would be any different. Both are only
killing what is on display. But then pouring lots of boiling water on
at once could get to the root.

[I've bought a steam cleaner for use in the kitchen. I've been thinking
of trying it on "patio weeds".]

It will work after a fashion if you are terrified by "chemicals" and
don't mind the environmental pollution caused by using large amounts of
energy to achieve very little by way of useful results.

Since weedkiller costs many many many times more than the fuel to boil
the steam, it's clear that it must also use more resources.

Only if you are exceptionally stupid.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown