In article , "Cereoid-UR12"
wrote:

Since it is organic, even rubber is eventually biodegradable by the actions
of bacteria. Seen it happen in landfills.

However, I would not want to use what results as a soil for growing plants.
The stuff is apparently toxic and most weeds won't even grow in it.

How did ground rubber get approved for use as mulch anyway?

The government prioritized certain problems this way:

1) The foremost waste management problem in America is what to do with
waste tires. One way or another it MUST be taken care of, but:

2) We're an automobile related society and whatever the answer to problem
may be, it must foremost be compatible with having more & more
automobiles.

3) If the tire industry is forced to spend money to clean up a problem the
industry causes, the industry will be ****ed off & move to Indonesia,
where for a fee millions upon millions of used tires have already been
accepted from Malaysia & Thailand & the Philipines, turned into enormous
mountains of waste rubber.

4) If the public can be inducedto PAY MONEY to obtain bags full of ground
up tires, it could be PROFITABLE rather than economic burden to have all
these bothersome used tires about.

5) If the environment is harmed by this "solution," the harm has to be
weighted against the positives of doing away with the waste & adding to
rather than subtracting from the economic environment.

6) Sure, this "solution" creates another environmental hazard. But even
bad news can be worded to sound like good news, & that's all that matters.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/