In message
Spider wrote:

On 03/08/2010 10:32, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Tue, 3 Aug 2010 09:32:22 +0100, john hamilton wrote:

If we left this heap to just sit there, how long before it would dry
enough so we could just burn it in a dustbin?

Why bother with a dustbin (by which I presume you mean a metal
dustbin like garden incinerator)?

Build a fire on the ground and get a decent bit of heat going and
it'll burn now. Might be worth leaving it a week or so so the leaves
burn when put on rather that produce smoke. You'll need some dryish
wood to get the initial fire and heat going. Cut what have into 2' or
so bits, ready to put only 3 or 4 on at a time.

Pay attention to the weather, don't have the fire on a scroching hot
still day when people will want their windows open, and look for
neighbours with washing hung out to dry...



.... and remember that the toxic sap will give off cyanide fumes. Make
sure you stand upwind of the smoke.

The smoke from incompletely burned vegetable matter is harmful. That
is well known in the case of tobacco, why should we think that other
kinds of vegetable matter are different? (The nicotine is not harmful,
it is merely the addictive ingredient) It is now recognised that
smouldering fire smoke from cooking is a major health problem in
Africa. And coal smoke. It is simply very old vegetable matter which
has already been cooked a little by the heat of the earth.

Michael Bell



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