Toxic Rubber Mulch
An article that began as a rough-draft rignt into this newsgroup was later
fleshed out he http://www.paghat.com/rubbermulch.html & has beenon the web for a long while now. The most important sentence therein is the only thing that must be kept always in mind: "Rufus Chaney of the USDA, following the research for 20 years, stated that the majority of research leads to the conclusion that for the Zinc factor alone, ground or chipped rubber should never be used in gardens." Today I heard from activist Pauline Noble in Shropshire England: "Whole tires were banned from landfill in the UK in 2003 and rubber crumb is due to follow suit in July 2006. The Government / tire*industry here is frantic.* They are selling this minced up cr*p to anyone that will buy it, who in turn then*sell it on to the poor unsuspecting public whilst the cadmium, copper and sulphates run off*happily down their drains. Sort of good news, a radio station*got very interested in the story but even their tenacious researchers*have had doors slammed firmly in their faces when trying to get answers to questions.* It seems, as I have found over the years*"don't go there" about fits the bill.* However, as with any good journalism, they have recognised "spin" and have passed it down (in their words) to "the big guns in London" to follow all this up. At last perhaps I can sit back and hopefully someone with a lot more power than me is going to take this on (I can now totally relate to*Erin Brochovich!)" With bans on this harmful toxic product already coming in Britain, the American profiteers are more worried than ever. Buying toxic waste cheap to resell dearly to gardeners could well become illegal here, too. In general the government is on the side of the tire industry on this, because getting rid of old tires is an enormous problem, & tricking gardeners into killing their yards with it was advocated by the government even before a thousand companies began actually doing it. Still, it now appears the toxic waste vendors are & running scared, & even a bit hysterical. In the past three months I have been threatened with lawsuits from two different rubber mulch vendors, saying they will take me to court if I do not remove my article from the web. Both times I told them, "Sue me! Sue me now! It'll be fun to take down a bunch of liars who don't care how much harm you do!" I gave them my name & home address to make it easier for them. Of course they went away with their tails down. I heard from a third vendor who attempted to be disarmingly helpful in providing me with a copies of "a recent study" that showed their product to be harmless. The "study" was done in a garden set up by the vendor, nice photos taken, & some baseless assertions made -- then printed up by the vendor in the format of tear-sheets from a scientific journal, though it was 100% fake. I told him to send me copies of INDEPENDENT studies he didn't trump up at his wholesale company, & I'd give that all due consideration. Never heard from that lying jackass again either. I've also heard from a number of activists who asked permission to distribute my article, & I got several e-mails from one poor sap who was attempting to sue a landscaper who killed thousands & thousands of dollars with of perennials spreading out rubber mulch, incurring further expenses hiring anothner company to get the poisonous stuff back out of the landscape, & wanting to use my article & any others I knew about in his suit. Almost weekly I hear from someone who has been surfing the web looking for belated information after laying this stuff in their yard only to discover it killed everything & stunk up the place so horribly on hot days that they couldn't even use their own yards or leave their doors or windows open. Good on for the UK in preparing to ban this stuff in 2006. The toxic-waste-for-your-gardens industry is busy right now trying to stop the ban from going into effect. They are scared shitless of publicity & of the public knowing the facts. In the meantime the vendors of this poison continue to peddle it as fast as they can, while writing threateningly to activists who'd like gardeners to know never to use this stuff, or faking "studies" in their vendor-operated "experimental" gardens in order to fabricate non-data "proving" facts aren't facts. They know they've got to make the killing (in all senses of the word) right now, because eventually it'll be banned. -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" Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com |
Toxic Rubber Mulch
"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message ... The message from (paghat) contains these words: Today I heard from activist Pauline Noble in Shropshire England: "Whole tires were banned from landfill in the UK in 2003 and rubber crumb is due to follow suit in July 2006. The Government / tire industry here is frantic. They are selling this minced up cr*p to anyone that will buy it, who in turn then sell it on to the poor unsuspecting public whilst the cadmium, copper and sulphates run off happily down their drains. With bans on this harmful toxic product already coming in Britain, Good on for the UK in preparing to ban this stuff in 2006. The toxic-waste-for-your-gardens industry is busy right now trying to stop the ban from going into effect. That completely misrepresents the UK situation, and btw, there is no rubber-waste-for-your-garden industry here. From 2006, shredded tyres will be banned **only from landfill** in the UK. That just means, that after that date shredded tyres can't be disposed of in landfill/dumps (whole tyres are already banned from being buried in landfill/dumps). This is an EU directive. In the UK, govt policy is that used whole and shredded tyres will be recycled; material made from recycled tyres is NOT banned. http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/...pics/tyres.htm The Government / tire industry here is frantic. They are selling this minced up cr*p to anyone that will buy it, who in turn then sell it on to the poor unsuspecting public whilst the cadmium, copper and sulphates run off happily down their drains. I have no idea what PN is talking about here. I have never seen, or heard of, minced or crumb rubber being advertised or sold to the gardening public in the UK, or used for any kind of garden mulch or soil amendment; so it's hard to imagine for what other outdoor purpose she claims it's being sold to the public,(how else could run-off from it be getting down their drains?) I don't know about the UK, but here is the USA, you can get the stuff at Lowe's - a large hardware retail chain. I saw it for the first time last year and asked about it here. It just didn't seem like a good idea and I wouldn't have bought it just based on my intuition. |
Toxic Rubber Mulch
In article , Janet Baraclough
wrote: The message from (paghat) contains these words: Today I heard from activist Pauline Noble in Shropshire England: "Whole tires were banned from landfill in the UK in 2003 and rubber crumb is due to follow suit in July 2006. The Government / tire*industry here is frantic.* They are selling this minced up cr*p to anyone that will buy it, who in turn then*sell it on to the poor unsuspecting public whilst the cadmium, copper and sulphates run off*happily down their drains. With bans on this harmful toxic product already coming in Britain, Good on for the UK in preparing to ban this stuff in 2006. The toxic-waste-for-your-gardens industry is busy right now trying to stop the ban from going into effect. That completely misrepresents the UK situation, and btw, there is no rubber-waste-for-your-garden industry here. That's YOU misrepresenting. The majority of crumb rubber is used in the UK as artificial filldirt -- including in park areas, new development & construction areas, many of these places being intended for future gardens as well as future buildings, but which are now known to be irreversibly damaged. A lot of this use will be banned as of 2006, but with enough loopholes in the new regs that it will probably continue to be misused for some while unless watchdogs document continued harmful use, & get the regs tightened over time. Until then, there are no restrictions at all in the UK to continue using granulated rubber as fill dirt, including as part of gardening landscapes. The artificial filldirt is sometimes a combination of silica sand & granulated rubber, but increasingly it has been 100% granulated rubber. UK companies misrepresent this artificial filldirt as a suitable medium for lawn turf. You may call that "not for gardens" but you're splitting hairs. Lawn, garden, soccer field, riding trails -- it's a hell of lot of toxic waste dumped intentionally for profits & misrepresented as a healthy thing to be doing. Vast amounts of rubber & plastic waste product mixtures have been dumped in British parks, thick upon riding trails, misreperesented as "all season" riding surface allegedly "superior to" wood shavings for all the same lying reasons pioneered by American politicians & business scoundrals. This toxic matter migrates throughout the parks & kills plants, & leaches zinc & other heavy metals into water, until the UK EPA finally admitted it was causing overt damage to the environment. It is also being widely used in playgrounds. The first major inroads for spreading this toxic waste all over tarnation was the recommendation to put it under children's feet in America too. It has been sold to UK farmrs by the millions of tons to coat training corals. Masses of mixed plastic & rubber particles not rotting away as do woodchips. The growing farm use of crumb rubber caused toxic run-off that damaged forage in pastures. Wherever woodchips are used, this criminally minded industry in the UK has tried to horn in with their blend of rubber mulch & PVC particles. Tyre Shredders in Surrey is active in attempting to stop the coming ban, financing an international organization wonderfully called CRUMB (Crumb Rubber Universal Marketing Bureau), only an acronym like EVIL or HERETO****YOUBAD could've been more apropos!. From 2006,shredded tyres will be banne d **only from landfill** in the UK. That just means, that after that date shredded tyres can't be disposed of in landfill/dumps (whole tyres are already banned from being buried in landfill/dumps). This is an EU directive. In the UK, govt policy is that used whole and shredded tyres will be recycled; material made from recycled tyres is NOT banned. http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/...pics/tyres.htm What the hell does material manufactured from recycled material have to do with anything? Damn straight, if it's made into welcome mats & carpet pads, great. No one ever said rubber shouldn't be recycled into actual physical products. It's polluting the landscape with it that is the problem, & in the UK that's become a very big problem. To get the ban through concessions were made. In fact, the tire industry helped write the new restrictions so there would be plenty of loopholes. One loophole is that artificial filldirt can still be used under buildings for new construction. Obviously there will be no one monitoring this & yes it will still end up in the landscape proper, where it will continue to kill gardens & the environment generally. The INTENT though is t o stop the widespread use of artificial filldirt in the environment generally, gardened or not -- in the hope tha it will be recycled as a percentage of concrete instead, or new methods will be developed so that finally rubber can be recycled as rubber (as now formulated, old tires cannot be used to make new ones). By letting the tire industry shape the regulations, however, there is no certainty much good will actually come of it. Baby steps though, & the industry IS scared. The Government / tire*industry here is frantic.* They are selling this minced up cr*p to anyone that will buy it, who in turn then*sell it on to the poor unsuspecting public whilst the cadmium, copper and sulphates run off*happily down their drains. I have no idea what PN is talking about here. I have never seen, or heard of, minced or crumb rubber being advertised or sold to the gardening public in the UK, or used for any kind of garden mulch or soil amendment; so it's hard to imagine for what other outdoor purpose she claims it's being sold to the public,(how else could run-off from it be getting down their drains?) Pauline's been an activist on this for four years, but if you read better, she never once used the word "garden." I qoted only one of her paragraphs; in the entirety it might've been more clear to you she is addressing the widespread use of crumb rubber in parks on horse trails, & on playgrounds. These scatter physically plus put leechates into forests & gardens & waterways. Janet. In the UK, minced rubber has never been sold as a garden mulch So you said. Never mind taht you're wrong -- crumnb rubber is used in England under the disguising term "bulking agent" as a truly second-rate carbon source. "Bulking agent" can be straw, sawdust, woodchips, rubber chips, crumb rubber, or even plastic particles; if the product does not guarantee itself organic, veryr likely the bulking agent is pulverized rubber, introducing excesses of zinc into the garden. But that was not the subject & not what is thus far part of the pending ban. I mention it because it just shows how wrong you are. It's what happens when you care insufficiently -- you're easily tricked into doing harm to the environment even if you thought you were doing pretty well. The real issue is it is used in England as a substitute for fill dirt in vast expanses of landscape that will afterward be put to any number of uses (including areas to be planted), & on park trails & bridal trails & on playgrounds & on farms in corrals. That it is not sold in garden shops as a pure crumb rubber recommended as a SURFACE mulch is hardly an improved situation; when it is deeply packed in as fill dirt & cannot even be scraped off for future gardening! You may play with the truth here by relying on the idea that you can't buy it in the garden center in tiny bags labeled "mulch," but since it is used in the UK by the millions of tons as a replacement for filldirt in many types of UK landscapes, really that's AT LEAST as bad as making the individual gardeners do it a little bit at a time. That it's "secretly" in commercial composts as "bulking agent" makes even your limited sense of "no it's not sold here like that" rather less than factual, because, well, yes it is. And the harmfulness of this junk has been worse in the UK than in the US because in the UK these monsters have combined multiple waste disposal problems & permitted powdered plastics to be mixed into the artificial fill dirt -- all stuff that will practically never degrade. -paggers -- "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" Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com |
Toxic Rubber Mulch
The two local big box stores sell it in various colors........personallly I don;t like it. They have it listed for use in playgrounds, and anywhere a long lasting rot proof mulch ground cover is needed. Even if I liked it, I could not afford the price of it anyhow, but to me it looks tacky. How about those formed rubber mulch collars that they sell. Pretty pricey as well, $30.00 for a 24" diam collar IIRC.....and how long will it last if you happen to catch it with the mower? Visit my website: http://www.frugalmachinist.com Opinions expressed are those of my wifes, I had no input whatsoever. Remove "nospam" from email addy. |
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