| Dear
EarthTalk: Within my lawn I have over 100 citrus,
mango and avocado trees. When I use Scott’s Bonus
S Weed and Feed, am I feeding my new fruit any poison? Will
the weed killer be taken up by the fruit?
-- Richard Weissman, Miami, FL
| |
Howard
Garrett, founder of the Dirt Doctor website, recommends
sticking
to organic fertilizers -- which contain naturally
buffered blends of major nutrients, trace minerals,
organic matter and carbon -- for the well being of
plants, humans and animals alike.
© The Dirt Doctor |
In
short, yes and yes: You will jeopardize the health of your
fruit trees and your yard in general if you use such products.
Scott’s Bonus S Weed and Feed, as well as many other
“weed-and-feed” fertilizers (Vigero, Sam’s,
etc.), contain the harsh chemical herbicide atrazine, which
excels at terminating fast-growing weeds like dandelions
and crabgrass but can also kill other desirable plants and
trees and damage your entire yard as toxin-carrying root
systems stretch underground in every corner and beyond.
Howard
Garrett, a landscape architect who founded the DirtDoctor.com
website and is an evangelist for natural organic gardening
and landscaping, points out that anyone who reads the label
on such products will learn that even manufacturers don’t
take their health and environmental effects lightly. Some
of the warnings right there in black and white on the Scott’s
Bonus S Weed and Feed packaging include precautions against
using it “under trees, shrubs, bedding plants or garden
plants” or in the general vicinity of any such plants’
branch spreads or root zones.
Scott’s
also recommends not applying it by hand or with hand-held
rotary devices or applying “in a way that will contact
any person either directly or through drift.” And
just in case you were thinking it was okay for the environment,
Scott’s adds that “runoff and drift from treated
areas may be hazardous to aquatic organisms in neighboring
areas” and that the product is “toxic to aquatic
invertebrates.”
Of
course, homeowners aren’t the only ones who want lush
plant or grass growth without weeds. Farmers have been using
atrazine for decades all over the country, although not
surprisingly concentrations are highest along the Midwest’s
so-called Corn Belt. The herbicide consistently delivers
slightly increased agricultural yields, but environmentalists
wonder at what cost. The Natural Resources Defense Council
(NRDC), a leading environmental research and advocacy non-profit,
reports that atrazine exposure has been shown to impair
the reproductive systems of amphibians and mammals, and
has been linked to cancer in both laboratory animals and
humans. Male frogs exposed to minute doses of the herbicide
can develop female sex characteristics, including hermaphroditism
and the presence of eggs in the testes. Researchers
believe such effects are amplified when atrazine and other
chemicals are used together.
As
to safer alternatives, Garrett recommends organic fertilizers.
“Synthetic fertilizers are unbalanced, often contain
contaminants, have no carbon energy, contain far too much
nitrogen and have few trace minerals,” he says. “Organic
fertilizers, on the other hand, contain naturally buffered
blends of major nutrients, trace minerals, organic matter
and carbon. They have lots of beneficial life and, most
important, they contain nothing that will damage the roots
of your trees and other plants.” Some of Garret’s
top choices include corn gluten meal (a natural way to prevent
the growth of new weeds), THRIVE by AlphaBio, Garrett Juice,
Ladybug, Medina, and Soil Mender. More and more choices
are coming on the market all the time thanks to the growing
popularity of organic gardening.
CONTACTS:
Scotts;
The
Dirt Doctor; NRDC.
Dear
EarthTalk: Where do you recycle plastic stuff
like sandwich bags, Saran wrap and plastic grocery store
wrappers? Can they just go in with other plastics in the
recycling bin? There never seems to be any information available
about this.
-- Renee La-Fountaine, Lake Hughes, CA
| |
Clinging
plastic like Saran wrap is difficult to recycle because
the resin it contains that gives it wrapping power
cannot be extracted without massive amounts of energy
- more than it would take to make it new from scratch.
And given that it’s usually soiled with some
kind of food, used plastic wrap should always just
go right into the trash. Pictured: A 1961 magazine
ad for Handi-Wrap.
© Pink Ponk Studios, courtesy Flickr |
The reason you
don‘t hear much about recycling these types of plastic
films is that most municipalities don‘t take back
items intended to wrap food. One exception may be sandwich
bags, which are made from easy-to-recycle polyethylene,
as long as any hard (i.e. “Ziploc”) components
are removed and they are rinsed free of any food debris
or stains.
For that matter,
if you are going to the trouble to wash them, you may as
well dry and reuse them at home a few times before relegating
them to the recycling bin. There are even small countertop
racks available for hanging plastic bags to dry before reusing
them.
Clinging plastic
like Saran wrap is problematic for recyclers because the
resin that it contains (to give it wrapping power) cannot
be re-extracted without massive amounts of energy—more
than it takes to make it new from scratch. And given that
it‘s usually soiled with some kind of food, used plastic
wrap should always just go right into the trash.
Other non-recyclable
plastic films include dark-colored plastic bags, bags with
handles or drawstrings, and anything else designed to be
wrapped around food. Since you can‘t even rinse or
recycle these kinds of plastics, it‘s better to avoid
them altogether and invest in some reusable containers to
store leftovers.
Another option
is to use plastic grocery store shopping bags (though they
are increasingly being phased out) to wrap your food leftovers
in. Many municipalities and most stores that provide such
bags accept them for recycling, so once you‘re done
with them they can be recycled or returned to the store,
after which they can be melted down and incorporated into
weather- and rot-resistant window and door frames, decking
(such as Trex), palettes, pipes and other long-lasting hard
goods. Like with sandwich and other bags you intend to recycle,
make sure plastic grocery bags are clean before you turn
them in for recycling.
If you are a
Ziploc bag or plastic wrap fanatic but want to do the right
thing by the environment, look for plastic food storage
film or bags made from biodegradable polymers. Some popular
brand names to keep an eye out for at Whole Foods and elsewhere
are Eco Wrap, EcoFlex and BioBag. These plastics—some
of which are made from agricultural scraps left over from
corn crops—can go right in with yard waste or other
compostables and will break down over time accordingly just
like cardboard or food scraps. With time major brands will
undoubtedly be offering similar products.
But even though
there may in fact be “greener” plastic out there,
reducing our reliance on disposable bags altogether should
be the ultimate goal. Luckily many grocery chains are hip
to greening their own operations and image, and are giving
away or selling for a nominal amount reusable canvas shopping
bags so customers don‘t have to choose between wasting
plastic and paper at the checkout line.
CONTACTS:
PlasticBagRecycling.org;
Trex;
BioBag. |
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