Subject: Re: CHAT/Thanx 4 info ALTERN. TO PRESURE TREATED WOOD

From: [email-masked] (Richard Campbell)
Date: 30 May 1995 15:17:17 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Patrick Joseph Burke) writes:
|> A note of thanks to all those who replied to my request for a substance 
|> that could be applied to pine boards to make them rot- and insect- 
|> resistant, as I was not interested in using pressure-treated wood (PPW)
|> for my raised-bed vegetable garden. Predictably, someone wrote me 
|> stating that all the research that he had read indicated that the arsenic 
|> and copper in PPW *do not* leach out of the wood.
|> 
|> I don't doubt the truth of that person's experience, but hereby challenge
|> anyone to show me an instance of anyone who stands to profit monetarily
|> from the production or trade in PPW citing the studies that show that
|> toxic materials *do* leach out. An excellent, reasoned response to this
|> issue was posted by Allyn Weaks. He notes that sellers of PPW are requred
|> to provide you with written instructions warning you of its toxicity and
|> of its "safe" handling, something which lumber sellers don't always do. 

   Just a sidenote.  I saw a Victory Garden segment over the weekend about
gardening with handicap access.  The director of this program at the Arnold
Arboretum, in Chicago, was showing off the variety of raised beds they use
for getting the garden up to the level for wheelchair, etc. access.  Some of
their raised beds were constructed of pressure treated wood.  The interviewer
asked about problems with leaching of toxic chemicals and the director
replied that they had performed analysis of plants grown in the beds and had
found no evidence of uptake of toxic chemicals.

   Just the same, in building the last raised beds I put in my yard I steered
clear of the pressure treated lumber. 

-- 
Rich Campbell, USDA zone 7 (near Dallas)

                    You mean dig up the soil,
                    pull all the weeds, plant
                    the seeds, pull some more
                    weeds, water the seeds,
                    and pull some more weeds?
                                   - C.B. 
[email-masked]