Muni greenwaste (was Re: [compost_tea] Re: do meter????)

From: Ted Peterson <ted.peterson_at_tcsn.net>
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2004 13:45:36 -0800

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Margaret Lauterbach
  To: compost_tea_at_yahoogroups.com
  Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2004 1:28 PM
  Subject: Re: [compost_tea] Re: do meter????


  I'd be wary of municipal compost or any using grass clippings. If
  Clopyralid was used in the past two or three years (and it's still being=
 
  used up on lawns outside of Washington State, at least), the herbicidal
  effects will persist through the compost. Will they persist through
  steeping and aeration? Probably.


I did some research into Clopyralid and Plicotin because we had a contract =
that used muni greenwaste. Theoretically, both are supposted to be broken =
down by soil bacteria. The ranges of breakdown are between 60 and 90 days.=
  The products containing these are represented as safe if the grass is gra=
sscycled after mowing. In the report I read from UW, it seems that the mun=
i greenwaste was, at the most, maturing on an average of 5 weeks. They had=
 too much and too much demand. The stuff was going out much faster than th=
at if I recall correctly.

So, when used at home and the clippings stay in the ground, supposedly, the=
y breakdown in 60 - 90 days. This, of course, assumes that the soil biolog=
y hasen't been decimated through over feeding and salts and ??? But this i=
s rarely the case. In Washington, I read where muni greenwaste operations =
had been suspended totally or that the public could not buy greenwaste from=
 the operations or the greenwaste had to go to the landfill or a combinatio=
n of the above depending on municipality.

Clopyralid is toxic at 1ppb according to the UW report.

Ted Peterson
Earth-Wise/Spirit of the Earth



Received on Sun Mar 14 2004 - 18:25:37 EST

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