Rubber Mulch- Warning!

As Jeanie Kashgarian mentioned at the annual meeting, there is increasing concern about the sale and use of ground up tires for a longlasting "rubber mulch." Nancy Alderman, President of Environment and Human Health, Inc. explained in a recent e-mail that there are at least three serious reasons for concern:

1. The rubber mulch has an excess amount of zinc - and the excess zinc stunts the growth of plants. See North Carolina's Department of Agricultural's study on
rubber mulch - http://www.ncagr.com/agronomi/pdffiles/rubber.pdf .

2. There is the potential for ground water contamination from the chemicals in the ground up rubber tire mulch. For people on residential wells, this is particularly worrisome.

3. The companies producing and selling this product do not explain where the rubber mulch comes from or the dangers it presents to gardens, soil contamination and ground water. They are simply telling people they won't have to mulch again for the next 10 years because the product will not break down. Real garden mulch is meant to break down and become part of the soil - that is the whole point.