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#16
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Creosote Ties
In article
, Billy wrote: In article , "Mike" wrote: "Sheldon" wrote in message ... On Jun 9, 12:50?pm, Chris wrote: On Jun 9, 1:12 pm, "SteveB" toquerville@zionvistas wrote: I am looking for some old railroad ties. ?They have creosote treating on them, but it is weak due to the age of the ties. ?Is this a problem when using them to form raised beds? Steve -- "...the man who really counts in the world is the doer, not the mere critic-the man who actually does the work, even if roughly and imperfectly, not the man who only talks or writes about how it ought to be done." Theodore Roosevelt 1891 Wikipedia has this about coal tar creosote, the kind used to preserve railroad ties: "The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has determined that coal tar creosote is probably carcinogenic to humans, based on adequate animal evidence and limited human evidence. It is instructive to note that the animal testing relied upon by IARC involved the continuous application of creosote to the shaved skin of rodents. After weeks of creosote application, the animals developed cancerous skin lesions and in one test, lesions of the lung. The United States Environmental Protection Agency has stated that coal tar creosote is a possible human carcinogen." Sounds like a problem to me. Chris Creosote occurs naturally every time wood burns; forest fires have occured since well before there's been animal life on this planet and still. Creosoted RR ties are essentially inert, that's how it preserves wood... used for ground contact lumber to contain a vegetable garden they are far safer to humans than living with the creosote emited from a wood burning stove. Plants are very discriminating, they don't absorb everything just because it's there. Oh, hell, I gotta couple of minutes to burn, so's here goes. Creosote: a dark brown oil distilled from coal tar and used as a wood preservative. It contains a number of phenols, cresols, and other organic compounds. € a colorless, pungent, oily liquid, containing creosol and other compounds, distilled from wood tar and used as an antiseptic. Basically it is a family of phenols and polyphenols. The phenols attack the amine portion in an amino-acid and that is important because amino-acids are the building blocks of proteins. Proteins are found in cell walls, enzymes, and muscles. Animal skins are preserved with a form of polyphenol called tannin which renders the hide toxic to micro-organisms that would like to degrade it. Unlike tannin, which comes from the bark of oak trees, there is no fixed provenance for creosote. It was never meant for ingestion, so it isn't checked for contaminants. One thing is certain though, it is used to kill micro-flora and fauna, such as one would find in an organic garden. So, if you are already growing your garden with Miracle Grow or some other chemfert, then there is little to lose (plant wise) using creosote. Human health wise, it is Russian roulette (but hey, there's only one bullet). No one says you had to be organic. If the RR ties are reasonably sound I'd use them, if they are rotten it really doesn't pay to use them to construct anything that one would want to look decent and last a while. Real RR ties are very difficult to work with even when new, they are typically not very consistantly sized, and not very straight, but mostly they are darn heavy, a ten footer can easily weigh 300 pounds... Where the **** do you come up with all this information Sheldon? Oh wait your talking about 10 footers. thats about 230 pounds more than a 8 footer. Never mind they were never meant to be used as construction lumber... I'd not waste my time and energy constructing a raised bed garden of any kind of rotten lumber. My dad painted the entire house sill with creosote 50 years ago. This to fend of ants and termites. He also gave me mercury to clean up coins with. We had so much asbestos about that my brother who lives there had to get professional help and clearance. Same guy was reading Sir Albert and Rodale at this time. Go Figure. http://chemicalland21.com/industrialchem/organic/ortho-CRESOL.htm http://msds.chem.ox.ac.uk/CR/o-cresol.html Bill Ps he has a few pounds of Cyanide in plastic bags in his basement. -- Garden in shade zone 5 S Jersey USA Neat place .. http://www.petersvalley.org/ |
#17
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Creosote Ties
In article
, Bill wrote: http://msds.chem.ox.ac.uk/CR/o-cresol.html Oh, Bill, please stop. ROFLOL ;o) You crack me up;-) -- Billy Bush and Pelosi Behind Bars http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KVTf...ef=patrick.net http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0aEo...eature=related |
#18
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Creosote Ties
On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:13:39 -0400, Bill
wrote: [...] He also gave me mercury to clean up coins with. [...] I remember as a child PLAYING with those "cute" mercury balls when a thermometer accidentally broke !!! Who knew, back then. Metallic mercury is pretty innocuous--it's the compounds that are dangerous, and the pure metal isn't terribly reactive. A kid in my high school _drank_ some of the stuff. Didn't seem to do him any harm, he'd done so much LSD that it was hard to tell. Getting out the hazmat team to clean up a broken thermometer is pretty much bureaucrats gone wild. -- -- --John to email, dial "usenet" and validate (was jclarke at eye bee em dot net) |
#19
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Creosote Ties
On Jun 13, 3:48 pm, "J. Clarke" wrote:
On Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:13:39 -0400, Bill wrote: [...] He also gave me mercury to clean up coins with. [...] I remember as a child PLAYING with those "cute" mercury balls when a thermometer accidentally broke !!! Who knew, back then. Metallic mercury is pretty innocuous--it's the compounds that are dangerous, and the pure metal isn't terribly reactive. A kid in my high school _drank_ some of the stuff. Didn't seem to do him any harm, he'd done so much LSD that it was hard to tell. The problem is that metallic mercury is somewhat volatile. As mercury vaporizes, it forms salts, which are quite hazardous. Getting out the hazmat team to clean up a broken thermometer is pretty much bureaucrats gone wild. Not really, given they're the ones who know what to do with the stuff. Dumping it down the drain is a nonstarter. Chris -- -- --John to email, dial "usenet" and validate (was jclarke at eye bee em dot net) |
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