permaculture

[John Schinnerer <eco_living@yahoo.com>]

Aloha,

> I was collecting our household urine in a simply 5 gallon bucket, for
> distribution onto gardens, plants and compost piles.  After I
> mentioned to a friend that we were having odor issues with the
> bucket, he warned me that urine + plastic = nasty stuff leaching out
> of the plastic, and doing bad things to my flora and fauna.

Try fill the bucket with carbon material - mac nut husks probably
easiest where you are ('Renew Hawai'i' down by Hilo dump has mac nut
husks, and other good stuff too - mulch mixes, compost, etc.), or
sawdust, etc..  Pee into that - soaks it up, keeps it off the plastic,
don't have to empty right away to avoid smell.  Add peed-on carbon
material to compost, mulch, etc. before it gets 'saturated' and put
fresh carbon in bucket...or easier, just pee on carbonaceous mulch
around the plants, or on compost pile...
 
> He's also derisive of the idea of using cut up
> tires in a raised-bed keyhole garden, "even though it's in the Design
> Manual".  So, I'm wondering if anyone else has any comments on this -
>... how about tires in the garden?

Well, they don't contribute anything beneficial to the soil, and if
exposed to UV will off-gas some - don't know what all they off-gas but
probably not 'good' stuff.  

In your/our area I'd use (have used, in fact) chunks/logs/limbs of
albizia and/or cecropia and/or similar plentiful, fast-growing to
invasive trees to form raised planters...the wood breaks down and feeds
the soil and they're locally renewable...

Tires that are buried, covered, underwater, etc. (no UV exposure)
(shredded, whole, whatever) are basically inert, at least according to
the eight separate research reports in "Use of scrap tires in civil and
environmental construction," Environmental Geotechnics Report No. 95-2,
May 10, 1995, from U of Wisconsin-Madison.  One report is even about
using shredded tires to remove organic compounds (the nasty kine) and
possibly VOCs from landfill leachate.

Tire offgassing/toxicity issue has gone 'round and 'round on the ESSA
list (originally the Earthship list) so there are lots of threads in
the archives if you want to examine old flame wars... ;-).  I got
myself a copy of the above report years ago and I find it pretty
convincing as to the inertness of buried tires (or tyres, as some of us
would say... ;-).


=====
John Schinnerer, MA
-------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Cultural & Ecological Designing
Food - Water - Shelter - Community - Technology
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net

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