EDUCATING THE WORLD ON SYNTHETIC TURF
INFORM
EDUCATE
ENLIGHTEN
THE
US TURF
UNIVERSITY
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Dangers of Recycled Tire Mulch
In a prior posting I vented about how a certain Central Florida gardening supa' star was highly recommending recycled tire mulch on-line (and I suspect in print too). This is the same well-respected gardener who has no problem utilizing synthetic fertilizers that feed the plant but not the soil...and send excess nitrogen or whatever else into our waterways...and keep big agri-business related companies with fat pockets...but I digress, that's a whole other series of postings.
I don't want to paraphrase this info because I just took a bunch of Benadryl and I am not trusting my literary or informational abilities too much at the moment. So...instead I will just shamelessly copy great info from the EHHI (Environmental and Human Health Inc.) site, they are a nonprofit organization that specializes in protecting us from ourselves.
A bit long but well worth the time investment. Here goes it (by the way, this also applies to using recycled tires to make raised beds, sorry)
The report is designed to place health and environmental exposures to recycled tire crumbs in a scientifically based context. In the spring of 2007, EHHI received numerous inquiries from parents who were concerned about health risks to their children from exposures to the ground-up rubber tire "crumbs" found in their town's synthetic turf fields. It was in response to those inquiries that research was undertaken.
Review of the scientific literature about these new fields found that similar concerns had been raised in other states and in other countries. In addition, health data from workers in rubber fabrication industries and the rubber reclamation industries showed the presence of volatile organic hydrocarbons, semi-volatile hydrocarbons and harmful particulates in the air.
Occupational studies revealed that there were health effects ranging from severe skin and eye irritation and respiratory irritation to three forms of cancer.
Based on these studies, EHHI decided to initiate an exploratory study with the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station to examine whether the rubber tire "crumbs" out-gassed harmful chemicals into the air or were capable of leaching into ground water.
The four compounds found in the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station study, conclusively identified with confirmatory tests, were: benzothiazole; butylated hydroxyanisole; n-hexadecane; and 4-(t-octyl) phenol. Approximately two dozen other chemicals were indicated at lower levels. Chemicals are tested for their potential as cancer-causing agents (carcinogens), their capability of causing mutations (mutagenicity), and their capability of producing fetal malformation (teratogenicity). The four chemicals found have the following reported actions: