Susan is also blogging at GardenRant.Using Rubber Mulch in Your Garden
Every year more than 700 million new tyres are created replacing a similar amount that ends up getting burnt or discarded in waste sites. In fact, in Australia alone more than 70% are still being tossed away annually.
Fortunately gardeners aren't wasteful people and we've used them to stack potatoes, add a swing for the kids and even turned them inside out and planted flowers in them. But there are only so many potato tires, swings and planters that one garden needs.
So the new trend is to apply rubber mulch on your garden beds and why not? It comes in a range of colours, doesn't break down (not in your lifetime anyway) so you shouldn't need to replace it and it's easy to apply. Plus there are no smells that keep your neighbours indoors.
With so many benefits it seems hard to bypass an obvious solution to the rubber recycling problem.
That is until you find out whether it has any detrimental side effects to your garden. And, alas, it does. Recycled rubber mulch contains enough zinc, cadmium and other heavy metals to destroy your favourite ornamentals in one foul swoop.
Rubber mulch is often extolled with the virtue of containing nitrogen but it is so minimal that the heavy metals far outweigh any pre-conceived benefit.
This would be okay if it were where the story ended. You could easily decide to steer clear of applying rubber mulch to your garden and resume normal organic applications. But it seems that recycled rubber mulch is becoming more common as a bulk filler for normal organic mulch as well.
This is a little disconcerting for gardeners especially when you can't identify many of the ingredients that go into the mulch you buy from your soils provider.
The solution: It pays to ask. If your mulch retailer can't tell you if recycled rubber is used as a filler then find one that can. At the very least, if you are still in doubt, go back to composting your own natural waste products.
Originally published on Gardening Tips 'n' Ideas.