Hi all,
I have what may sound like a silly question. I am putting together a couple
raised beds for a veggie garden and I would like to construct the bed to
conserve water as much as possible. I know that you can buy the super
absorbent polymers too add to soil that will soak up the water and then
release it again when the soil dries out. Granted, these are for smaller
flower pots, but I don't see any reason why the concept wouldn't work on a
larger scale. Unfortunately, given the size of the raised beds, using these
advertised materials would be cost prohibitive. So, I was thinking that
disposable diapers also contain super absorbent polymers that are not as
expensive as the garden variety. I was thinking that I could rip the
batting out of the diapers and mix it into the soil.

My concern is that 1) the diaper polymers may release undesired chemicals
into the soil that would either harm the plants or get into the food, and 2)
the type of polymer in the diaper is such that it would not release the
moisture readily.

Does anyone know of any data on this subject? I can't believe that I am the
first to have thought about it. Any other alternatives to consider?
Thanks.

Greg




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My concern is that 1) the diaper polymers may release undesired chemicals
into the soil that would either harm the plants or get into the food, and
2)
the type of polymer in the diaper is such that it would not release the
moisture readily.

Diapers are specifically designed to NOT release moisture and their
materials do not decompose readily -- I'd stay away from this one.

James

I have found the addition of most natural kitty litters made from zeolite,
attapulgite, or bentonite will make a cheap moisture retentive addition to
any soil that you have. All these are natural minerals, and will not upset
the soil. Check the bag of the kitty litter and it should tell you what it
is made of. Zeolite is by far the best, but the other two will work as well.

--
Anna Merchant

http://www.thecotfactory.co.nz
If electricity comes from electrons, does that mean that morality comes from
morons?

"Greg Peterson" wrote in message
...
Hi all,
I have what may sound like a silly question. I am putting together a
couple
raised beds for a veggie garden and I would like to construct the bed to
conserve water as much as possible. I know that you can buy the super
absorbent polymers too add to soil that will soak up the water and then
release it again when the soil dries out. Granted, these are for smaller
flower pots, but I don't see any reason why the concept wouldn't work on a
larger scale. Unfortunately, given the size of the raised beds, using
these
advertised materials would be cost prohibitive. So, I was thinking that
disposable diapers also contain super absorbent polymers that are not as
expensive as the garden variety. I was thinking that I could rip the
batting out of the diapers and mix it into the soil.

My concern is that 1) the diaper polymers may release undesired chemicals
into the soil that would either harm the plants or get into the food, and
2)
the type of polymer in the diaper is such that it would not release the
moisture readily.

Does anyone know of any data on this subject? I can't believe that I am
the
first to have thought about it. Any other alternatives to consider?
Thanks.

Greg




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http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----

In article , "Greg Peterson"
wrote:

Hi all,
I have what may sound like a silly question. I am putting together a couple
raised beds for a veggie garden and I would like to construct the bed to
conserve water as much as possible. I know that you can buy the super
absorbent polymers too add to soil that will soak up the water and then
release it again when the soil dries out. Granted, these are for smaller
flower pots, but I don't see any reason why the concept wouldn't work on a
larger scale. Unfortunately, given the size of the raised beds, using these
advertised materials would be cost prohibitive. So, I was thinking that
disposable diapers also contain super absorbent polymers that are not as
expensive as the garden variety. I was thinking that I could rip the
batting out of the diapers and mix it into the soil.

My concern is that 1) the diaper polymers may release undesired chemicals
into the soil that would either harm the plants or get into the food, and 2)
the type of polymer in the diaper is such that it would not release the
moisture readily.

Does anyone know of any data on this subject? I can't believe that I am the
first to have thought about it. Any other alternatives to consider?
Thanks.

Greg

I can't speak specifically about superabsorbant diapers, but I presume
they're the same biodegradable synthetic polymers being touted as lowering
the amount of water a garden requires. These polymers are dangerous
frauds. I'll post an article about this below.

SUPER ABSORBANT POLYMERS: DUPED PUBLIC & ENVIRONMENTAL RISK

The reliable feature of polymers is their enormous molecules that persist
in the environment. The "good" thing about this is these molecules are too
large to be incorporated into cellular growth hence they have no nutrient
value to flora or fauna. The "bad" thing is they have no nutrient value to
flora or fauna! Many polymers are nevertheless included in livestock feeds
& dumped in gardens & on agribusiness plantations in everything from
pesticides to pure plain polymers sold as water-retentive joys even cooler
than working packing-peanuts into the soil.

Many of the "superabsorbant" properties claimed by polymer manufacturers
are exaggerated, & during biodegradation are even reversed in their
effect. Woodchips, quality compost, or peat do the same job adequately,
plus the woodchips or compost provide safe plant nutrients & a medium for
benificial micro-organisms polymers retard.

And, inevitably, it turns out that some polymers do in fact reach the
foodchain, especially the allegedly safer-to-the-environment biodegradable
synthetic polymers. These are fed directly to livestock as feed
supplements, are dispersed over crops in herbicides & pesticides, & are
mixed into garden soils because of preposterous claims of doing away with
a need ever again to water the garden. As it turns out, some of the broken
down components act upon animals (including humans) much as do female
hormones. tjis interferring with fertility cycles in women & lowering the
fertility rate of men, also causing impotence in men. The polyacrylamides
in garden-grade (& in feedlot grade) polymers are derived from (& contain)
cancer-causing & poisonous monomer acrylamide.

That's for the "good" kind of biodegradable synthetic polymer! And it's
all down hill from there. Although these polymers have been tested for
toxicity in their undegraded state, the industry-funded research rather
carefully avoids assessing the degrading properties & the new chemicals
that arise from bonding with salts or boxite it links up within the
environment. When someone like Frank Shields of the Soil Control Lab in
Watsonville California finds that polymers in garden soils RETARD water
absorption & are sufficiently toxic to kill plants (killed cucumbers in
the test samples), the final assessment is that more studies are needed to
understand the process, but no funding was ever forthcoming since any
study the goal of which is to find out why plants die or water fails to be
absorbed go against the interests of the funding sources who are the same
as the manufacturers making the opposite claims for their polymers!

Frank Shields actually observed soils with biograding superabsorbant
polymers REPELLING water so that the ground remained too dry. But Jim
McNelly of composter.com reports a different reason for this dryness,
shown in assessment studies he was part. The polymers biodegrade into a
taffy-like substance that do not release their moisture for plants to use,
AND do not permit moisture into the surrounding soil. McNelly indicates
that some polymers are less harmful than others. But no comparative tests
have been done to establish which is which, & if/when someone does do such
a comparative study, there will still be no way to correlate this
information with garden products, no law requiring adequate labeling, & a
garden product with the same label on it may in fact have a different
composition one week to the next since many of the ingredients are a
changable array of chemicals from new & from recycled waste sources.

So when asked "Would you like to dump huge amounts of ground up PLASTIC
in your garden soil, buddy?" how is that the answer is so often, "Sure I
would!"

Think propoganda. "I'm with the chemical company, getting my town too!" It
puzzles me, but people just line up for the buggering.

Polymers in the environment are dreadful pollutants & I have wondered how
industry made such powerful inroads into gardening practices, except that
far too many of industrial sales techniques targetting gardeners have
always done this, & decades after some of their Neat New Discoveries are
banned, we're still having to deal with DDT & dioxins them in the food
chain, all the while new toxins are developed & people are encouraged to
do injury to themselves & the whole world by dumping pesticides,
herbicides, fungicides, heavy metals in fertilizers, & polymers all over
the very they purportedly love & were hoping to benifit. People just seem
never quite to be able to believe the same companies that told you it was
okay to breathe in asbestos & spray dioxins all over your house just might
still be making things up when they say polymers are the neatest things
for your gardens & will lower your watering bill by 200 percent.

Pollution begins even before application of the product, as the
manufacturer requires highly volatile & dangerous activating resins &
catalysts & whatnot to create the polymer product. Many of the pollutants
are incinerated by the manufacturers themselves, without government
oversight. "Magically" these pollutants have ended up in landfills though
allegedly they are all either recyled or incinerated. The manufacturers
have been awarded Superfunding for clean-ups so that by polluting the
environment, they actually win GRANTS instead of prison time. Superfunding
has never really resulted in any site restored to safety, & some were
never cleaned up at all but just had -- tada -- POLYMERS laid down on top
of the pollutant with some landfill on top of that. The polymer barriers
are known universally not to be a lasting fix. This is the industry you
support by dumping their plastics in your garden, so even imagining the
polymers were as safe for your plants as the manufacturers like to say,
I'd rather rely on a good home compost than pay to be buggered by the
petrol & plastics industry.

There are contradictory factors at work within the industry itself, which
is heavily invested in NOT making too many biodegradable synthetics that
actually degrade well. When talking to the environmentally aware, this
stuff is pure wonderful magic & they're doing everything they can to limit
the amount of carbon-linked polymers you're using, though really they need
this stuff to NOT break down rapidly just because sunlight or air or water
or heat reaches it, it would practically be spoilable goods if they did
that. So when lobbying Congress, they make the arguments against
biodegrading polymers' safety in favor of carbon-chained & petroleum
polymers that barely ever break down. They say the biodegradable forms are
not safe because they release methane & other biogasses while decomposing
& cause explosions & subsidence.

I wonder if the Congressmen even asked the lobbyists what subsidence is
before they instructed the EPA to re-categorize polymers so that they
would not have so many restrictions. The glorious quality of
superabsorption, it turns out, DEPRIVES soils of moisture by LOCKING it
into polymers. This happens especially as the synthetic polymers
biodegrade. Well, the exploding part seems an exaggeration & is a landfill
problem, though I suppose enough methane could get into basements to blow
you up if you fill your yard with decayable polymers. But the problem of
localized subsidence drying out soils that were supposed to stay more
moist thanks to the polymers will be the eventual result of mixing this
crap into garden soils. It will eventually do exactly the opposite of what
it was intended to do, & make it very difficult to water plants
effectively at all. This is why manufacturers have until now suggested it
be used only in containers (the medium being replaced before the
biodegrading polymers can no longer release moisture), but as of May 2003
they can overlook jut about all dangers, & several fraudulent or
self-deluded "earth friendly" companies are already suggesting you just
dump this crap into all your soils & save on watering expense.

The alleged & propogandistic "benefits" of grinding plastic up in the
garden was one of a half-dozen half-baked methods dreamed up in the 1960s
to rid manufacturers of responsibility for disposal of horrible waste
products, & to sell this waste at enormous profit rather than find a way
to get rid of it at enormous expense. The same thing was tried with rubber
tires -- grind 'em up & churn it into your soils! As one British polymer
manufacturer jested, "Our only problem is finding a garden big enough to
take all this plastic." These companies are laughing all the way to the
bank.

The fact are these: water-asborbant polyacrylamide polymers 1) biodegrade
into cancer-causing & fertility-lowering toxins; 2) can continue to be
water-retaining but cease to be water-releasing as they break down & begin
to stop the soil overall from absorbing water, & may have a plasticizing
effect on surrounding soils resulting in lower absorption rates & topsoil
wash-off; & 3) have killed cucumbers by an unexplained toxic means in one
controlled study, but funding to find out why polymers would be so toxic
has not been forthcoming so that this research is not thus far being
furthered.

Another problem is that soil-dispersed polymers are washed into sewer &
drainage systems by stormwater, often directly into lakes & the ocean,
creating environmental havoc. The havoc lasts a good deal longer if they
are carbon-link polymers instead of synthetic,. but they're bad either
way.

Further, these companies have a history of hostility toward the public,
despite the "spin" they put on their behavior. A single example would be
Lavco Polymer -- not worse than average, but it's nice to have a specific
case. They railroaded into an economically depressed town, got themselves
exempted from all antipollution laws, were given special tax exemptions, &
in the name of "recycling" polymers in reality just took pressures off of
polymer manufacturers so that they wouldn't actually have to make safer
products. Lavco literally threatens to move their industry to the Third
World if they are ever restricted in their activities or receive too few
local government subsidies or are ever told they have to pay taxes like
everyone else.

Responses of polymers dispersed in soil & later exposed to fire & flood
conditions are problems. Further toxins released by burn-throughs, &
polymers rinsed into waterways, are never included in risk studies bought
& paid for by the industry to prove complete safety.

ALL studies that show only limited risk to polymers in the environment
make several false assumptions: They are the only polutants in the
environment rather than part of a horrific poluting mix; the chemicals
that arise from degradation of the chemical components do not need to be
included or assessed in toxic studies; & the manufacturers are doing a
very finejob of recycling or incinerating the harmful components therefore
the harmful components are being dealt with properly. None of these
assumptions are true, but they are part of every finding of safety.

-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/

On Sun, 23 Mar 2003 09:05:01 -0600, "Greg Peterson"
wrote:

Hi all,
I have what may sound like a silly question. I am putting together a couple
raised beds for a veggie garden and I would like to construct the bed to
conserve water as much as possible. I know that you can buy the super
absorbent polymers too add to soil that will soak up the water and then
release it again when the soil dries out. Granted, these are for smaller
flower pots, but I don't see any reason why the concept wouldn't work on a
larger scale. Unfortunately, given the size of the raised beds, using these
advertised materials would be cost prohibitive. So, I was thinking that
disposable diapers also contain super absorbent polymers that are not as
expensive as the garden variety. I was thinking that I could rip the
batting out of the diapers and mix it into the soil.

My concern is that 1) the diaper polymers may release undesired chemicals
into the soil that would either harm the plants or get into the food, and 2)
the type of polymer in the diaper is such that it would not release the
moisture readily.

Does anyone know of any data on this subject? I can't believe that I am the
first to have thought about it. Any other alternatives to consider?
Thanks.

Greg


The absorbent polymer in diapers is a very fine powder called sodium
polyacrylate. It is unsuitable for use in planting media because it is
too fine, it decomposes too quickly, and it releases sodium into the
soil when it breaks down. It does hold more moisture (about 500 times
its weight) than polyacrylamide (about 400 times its weight), but
polyacrylamide lasts much longer (five to ten years) and releases
nitrogen when it completely breaks down. (Both polymers also release
carbon dioxide and water when they decompose.)

Polyacrylamide certainly seems expensive, but it may seem more
reasonably priced when you consider how long it lasts and how
beneficial it is, and also the fact that as little as ten pounds will
treat 500 cubic feet at a cost of less than $50. It seems unlikely
that you could get that much of the unsuitable sodium polyacrylate
from $50 dollars of disposable diapers, but I might be wrong on this
point since I've never bought disposable diapers and I don't know how
much polymer they contain.

If you do decide to use polyacrylamide you ought to buy it in the
medium (1 to 2 mm) or large (2 to 4 mm) particle size. It is also
available as powder and fine particles. Powder is suitable only for
coating the bare roots of plants prior to shipping or planting and
lasts only a year or so. Fine particles are best for plants in
relatively small pots (under 12 inches in diameter). Also, don't mix
the polymer particles into the top one or two inches of your planting
medium. When the polymer hydrates it will swell considerably, and if
it rises out of the soil it will decompose very quickly because of
exposure to sunlight. Of course, you could always mix the polymer
throughout the medium and use a thick mulch to protect emergent
particles from the sun, and the mulch would also help to conserve soil
moisture.

Two other points worth considering - some people believe that
polyacrylamide is toxic because acrylamide is (they must assume that
the polymer bond is less stable than the acrylamide molecule, but I've
never seen any evidence that this is true), and of course
polyacrylamide doesn't last forever.

BTW, no, you are not the first person to think that disposable diapers
might be usable. This has been a topic of (frequently heated)
discussion for several years in various gardening forums. Some people
refuse to believe that sodium acrylate and polyacrylamide are
different, or that the former is actually harmful. I've even seen one
person insisting that the very best thing to do is to cut disposable
diapers into pieces and line the bottom of pots with them!

If you have any questions or need a supplier of polyacrylamide please
let me know, either here in this group or by email. (Remove UCETRAP
from my return address to reach me by email).

HTH,
Harold