Susan is also blogging at GardenRant.Green Dumping Must Stop
This year I have received multiple requests to repeat a column I've run in some form or other many times now. The good news is that some people who read it are willing to change long-standing habits. The bad news is that others still don't understand why the rules apply to them.
Like what? Like the social, ecological and legal issues involved with garden waste disposal. The majority of gardeners act like adults. When they learn that a superabundance of grass clippings and leaves can damage natural environments, they make appropriate choices.
Some will compost their garden waste, using it to replenish their garden. Others who lack time or space choose to recycle in green-waste carts for curbside disposal.
So far, so good. What is not good is the strange attitude that allows a misguided few to decide that their grass is somehow different. Often, the presence of a nearby ravine or waterway is just too tempting. It's so easy to toss stuff, so why not? Who will ever know?
Every one of these scofflaw folks whom I've contacted personally invariably explains that they simply do not believe that it does any harm to toss leaves, clippings and garden scraps over the side of ravines, cliffs and slopes or into a nearby stream or pond.
They argue that everything they are dumping is natural, so how can it harm the environment? They often add that they and their families have been doing it for decades, if not generations.
However, no matter how traditional "green dumping" may feel, it is dangerous. It is especially harmful when green wastes end up on a steep slope, in a ditch or near a ravine, beach, pond or stream.
For one thing, there are a lot more of us now. Natural areas of all kinds are negatively affected by human population pressures. Stressed environments are less resilient and are far more easily damaged than undisturbed places (of which there are precious few left).
Sadly, heaped grass clippings and leaves do not just go away or compost naturally. Instead, they can create erosion and sloughing when piled on slopes of any kind.
Slopes can start to slide when even modest amounts of green wastes are repeatedly heaped on them. Such piles can smother native plantings that are holding fragile slopes in place.
Though green wastes will turn to compost in time, heaps of grass clippings can take years to break down. Turn over such a heap and you'll see that everything beneath the heap is dead.
The fine texture of grass clippings acts as a smother mulch; instead of composting, it chokes out life. This unfortunate effect is especially likely when the dump piles are not turned to get more oxygen into the mix.
Many a beginning composter learns the hard way that anaerobic (low-oxygen) compost piles don't work well. They decay too slowly and tend to develop pathogen populations that smell dreadful and feed on live plant roots. This is not optimal in the garden and is especially dangerous where you are counting on plant roots to hold a steep slope or bank in place.
Waterways are equally vulnerable. Runoff from chemically treated plant material dumped near water can harm or kill many aquatic creatures. Even organic green waste can cause problems for wildlife. The heat caused by the decomposition of an inch of naturally nurtured lawn clippings can raise temperatures high enough to harm or kill fish and frog eggs, as well as delicate dragonfly larvae.
Garden wastes also degrade water quality, sending pollution downstream. As it happens, we all live downstream from somebody.
We all know better than to deliberately damage our environment. We have a shared responsibility to nurture our own piece of earth as well as the water we drink and the air we breathe.
To this end, we all may decide to learn benign ways to water and feed our lawns. We may even decide to reduce or eliminate our lawn. We all must recognize that what we do to our lawns will affect nearby slopes and bluffs, wetlands and other ecologically sensitive areas.
We all need to make the commitment to recycle grass clippings, leaves and other garden scraps. Green dumping of grass is so destructive that many cities will fine people caught tossing garden wastes near water or on slopes.
In Washington State, it is illegal to dump green wastes — whether lawn clippings, leaves or anything else — in natural places. That includes waterfront and shoreline of any kind. If a neighbor persists in illegal dumping, Washingtonians have several options, starting with calling the county code violation department. If garbage is involved, the environmental health folks at the county health department should be contacted.
Ann Lovejoy, free-lance garden and food writer, lives on Bainbridge Island, a ferry ride away from Seattle, Washington. Known as The Mother Theresa of organic gardening, in 1996 Ann was awarded the American Horticultural Society’s Horticultural Writing Award for excellence in writing and significant contribution to horticulture.
Ann has been featured on HGTV, National Public Radio, and national public television. She has written more than 18 gardening books, including The American Mixed Border, Further Along the Garden Path, Fragrance in Bloom, and Naturalistic Gardening, and is a regular garden and food columnist for several newspapers. Her public volunteer gardening project, The Friday Tidy, uses a several-acre public library garden as a living classroom for a year-round teaching program involving thriving gardens entirely maintained by volunteers. This program recently won a national award and is the model for projects being developed in other communities. For more information about Ann’s work and community involvement, visit her website at www.annlovejoy.org, where you’ll find weekly articles on sustainable design and organic gardening, as well as seasonal recipes.