Responding to Diana Liu's comments on the tire info I posted, where she says
sorry for the rant.
No apology necessary. I quite agree with all you said, particularly that the
effects of leaching/offgassing are really not something we know. My attempt
was to try to find facts so that people could decide for themselves, rather
than try to persuade them using my own set of criteria.
We have created of our own design a world that has both wonderful and highly
risky things. We have not designed a world that is both functional and safe.
Many familiar and functional objects are also highly dangerous. (For example,
I have read that chlorine bleach is banned in Japan as a potent carcinogen, but
I am sure many people have Clorox at home and some may use it to disinfect
saved seeds or pruning tools). One of the things that struck me while trying
to gather facts is that all tires are not made alike. You really don't know
what you are getting when you recycle "a tire" into your garden. As they say
on Extoxnet and elsewhere, "the dose makes the poison". Is the tire an icon of
what we have come to dislike about environmental hazards, or is it in fact a
dangerous object? If we can't really tell, what should we do? And in a world
filled with similar objects, how does one negotiate it without getting weary or
just giving up?
All I am saying is that the risk of the tire is all around us -- in the air we
breathe in the city, where thousands of tires roll are braked on and leave tire
marks daily. We do not know whether the tires are far more risky in their
shredded and powdered form, but are safer whole (another example is asbestos,
which is horrific and is left in place because it is said to be more dangerous
to remove it than to leave it undisturbed.). We do not know if we are removing
the most dangerous aspect of that rubber by removing the tire, but we can see
it and feel better if we get it out of there. We can't see or easily remove
the tire dust washing onto our sites or in the air in our urban gardens. So we
control what we can. Whether we have chosen our expenditure of personal energy
well is something we may never know.
If I keep the world safe for me, is that okay if by doing so I make it more
dangerous for others? Huge masses of tires are obviously hugely toxic. Does
adding more and more tires to a toxic land fill keep us all safer somehow?
Are any people and animals near that landfill more endangered than the people
near a tire in a garden? Is sending the tire "away", and getting it out of my
back yard, a genuine solution? Are groups of tires more toxic than single
tires in terms of reaching a particular level of toxicity?
I am in now way arguing with you. I am just trying to be completely honest
about not understanding the risks and being unable to clarify whether a
whole tire definitely poses significant risk, as opposed to a perceived risk.
I would like it if it were all not risky, but that is down the pike.
My whole point was to locate some clear information based on testing that I
could find for people and help to empower them with some facts in making their
decisions. When things are uncertain, the precautionary principle is the way I
personally would go. "when in doubt, leave it out." I think "if a tire were
all I had I would use it" is a straw man, because if one is committed to NOT
using such objects made of toxic substances, then one figures out a way to use
something else - a ring of rocks or decomposing downed tree branches or woven
wattle from bushes or something. Recycled broken up sidewalk? There is a way
that's inexpensive and likely less damaging.
Because environmental decisions are often watered down into Us versus Them
arguments- "don't listen to him/her - s/he's a treehugger or a complete
chemical nozzlehead" -- I was trying to provide something about what we know so
that what we know instead of "who they are" is the basis for deciding.
Here is an example of an Us versus Them argument that is propaganda and appears
on a federally funded agricultural extension website - I kid you not. This is
not facts -- this is persuasion with cherry picked facts. I do not want to be
guilty of doing the same thing over my own environmental concerns. Those who
prefer no toxins in their food production are here called chemophobes, and we
hear how safe they are. It's an example of why I tried to find facts, instead
of arguing from the heart.
http://www.panhandle.unl.edu/potato/html/chemophobia.htm
Chris Reid
Stamford, CT
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