permaculture

[John Schinnerer <eco_living@yahoo.com>]

Aloha,

> Here in CAlifronia, HAYWARD LUMBER, a huge and very old lumber
> company is selling 'ACQ' pressure treated lumber, without arsenic,
with copper.  Apparently arsenic PT will soon be outlawed.

No, CCA will be "phased out" for non-commercial applications (i.e.
retail sales, and maybe small-builder/contractor wholesale).  Not
phased out for "commercial" uses - still to be available.  I'm not
fully clear what-all "commercial uses" covers yet, but I do know it
covers marine uses (docks, piers, pilings, seawalls, etc.) for sure.

> They say "you can eat off that thar piece 'wood."
>   Umm, well...

Well, ask them to kindly demonstrate, and have a phone handy to call
911 if they start chewin' on the stuff.  Here's a link to a text
version of the MSDS (Materials Safety Data Sheet):

http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:MkAVtciGRPUC:www.pacificwood.com/msdssheets/acq1.pdf+acq+msds&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

MSDS also available as PDF here, and probably lots of other places:

http://www.pacificwood.com/msdssheets/acq1.pdf

MSDS are about the best shot a citizen has at finding out possible
hazards of materials that must be legally documented as to potential
hazards by the manufacturer.  Note however that, as in this MSDS (esp.
section 12, Ecological Information), the product is innocent until
proven guilty:

"EFFECT OF MATERIAL ON PLANTS or ANIMALS: No direct effect of PRESERVE
pressure treated wood on plant or vegetables have been submitted as
harmful evidence to human consumption.

EFFECT OF CHEMICAL ON AQUATIC LIFE: No evidence has proven pressure
treated wood detrimental to marine life."

Forget erring on the side of caution.  Make and market it until enough
evidence is presented that it's dangerous so that we're forced to
change, and when that happens we'll call it a "voluntary industry
action" (as with CCA phase-out).  Or we'll just get busted but hey, the
money's in the bank and we can still sell or at least dump our surplus
stock in other countries (DDT, PCBs, chlordane, asbsetos, ad
nauseum...) :-p

Alternatives to the new ACQ "less toxic" toxic treatment:

*Design to minimize wood-ground contact, wood/weather exposure
*Design to make replacement of degraded wood elements easy as
possible/modular
*Grow naturally durable species (regeneratively, of course ;-)
*Charring
*Soaking in the ocean
*Boric treated wood (least toxic industrial treatment method.  Google
search on boric msds will get tons of hits; here's one for a
wood-preservative liquid product:  
http://www.prginc.com/Borates/bora-care-msds.html )


=====
John Schinnerer, MA
-------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Cultural & Ecological Designing
People - Place - Learning - Integration
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net

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