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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Glyphosate factsheet

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: yarrow@sfo.com
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Glyphosate factsheet
  • Date: Tue, 15 May 2007 19:50:55 -0700

At 2:38 PM -0700 5/15/07, Bobby G wrote:
Speaking of Roundup and other toxins, has anyone
onlist come across facts about whether composting
shortens the half-life of this and similar substances?
and conversely, does the chemical slow down the
composting process, by having an effect on microbial
life? does compost have a role in remediating this
kind of toxicity?

Municipal yard-waste composting facilities did some studies when they first started operating, and they found that one chemical used on lawns, clopyralid, persisted in the finished compost. The composting process was able to break down all other pesticides and herbicides (the ones that are organic chemicals). As a result of the studies, clopyralid was banned in Calif. and a few other states.

Paul Stamets, who wrote the book Mycelium Running (and has an informative website), has done studies on growing various types of fungi in compost piles for bioremediation. (The U.S. government has also done a lot of bioremediation studies.). They found that composting does break down diesel fuel and other organic chemicals.

To the microbes, organic chemicals are food.

What composting cannot do is remove elemental toxins, such as lead, cadmium, mercury, and arsenic. Rufus Chaney and others have done some research on plants that selectively take up and concentrate specific minerals and heavy metals, and the last time I checked, some of this research was available online. The plants that concentrate toxins are, of course, treated as toxic waste and cannot be composted.




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