It’s red. It’s rubber. Is it safe for your garden?

Okay , it ’s not always crimson . In fact , it add up in brown , blue , green , orange , turquoise , black , and about a billion other colors . Nope , we ’re not talking about birds or butterfly or an amazing one-year plant life – we’re talking about safe mulch .

In the September / October 2009 ( 129 ) issue ofFine horticulture , we run an article address the tenacious - full term effects of using rubber mulch in the garden . We know it ’s ugly . Now we love it ’s unsafe , too .

What do you conceive ? Do you or does anyone you know apply it ? Do you remember it should be used on playgrounds ? What are the most ridiculous colors of rubber mulch that you ’ve see ?

Here ’s the original article :

Is arctic mulch dependable for my garden in the farsighted run?–Sam Yardley , Athens , Georgia

Linda Chalker - Scott , associate professor and telephone extension plantsman at the Washington State University PuyallupResearch and Extension Center , responds :

Rubber mulches are advertize as permanent , effective , and secure materials for utilisation in landscapes and garden . At first glance , it may seem that rubber mulches are an environmentally friendly way of recycling used tyre , but further research indicates they are neither effective in tenacious - term weed control ( moderately much anything will work in the short term ) nor safe for the surround . While reuse waste tyre is an authoritative environmental issue , the solution is not to spread the contamination problem over our landscapes and gardens .

fortune of rubber mulchIt ’s flammableA inquiry study comparing several unlike mulches find that when rubber mulch , which incorporate oil products , is ignited , it is more difficult to extinguish than any other mulch – admit Mrs. Henry Wood chips .

It ’s ToxicLike any other material , tires and rubber mulches are eventually fracture down by environmental factors , such as sunlight , or by bacteria and fungi . The chemicals that leach from tires are anything but benignant . They let in heavy metals , such as atomic number 13 , cadmium , atomic number 24 , Mo , selenium , and atomic number 30 . Two other common pencil eraser leachates are 2 - Mercaptobenzothiazole ( MBT ) and polyaromatic hydrocarbon ( PAHs ) ; these chemicals are wellness luck for humans and the environment .

It ’s DestructiveMany vegetables and ornamental mulched with rubber can accumulate high levels of Zn , sometimes to the degree of demise . Other metals find in decomposing rubber can also accumulate in plant etymon , parting , or fruit , depending on the specie . acidulous soils are particularly sensitive because heavy metals are more useable for plant life intake . Decomposing gumshoe mulch provide a constant flow of toxic leachates into adjacent aquatic systems . Research has also shown that entire aquatic community are injured or killed when expose to these chemical substance .

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