Do you know what is really in the mulch you spread around your landscape and garden? The materials used to make mulch have changed drastically in the last decade.
In effort to reduce solid waste from ending up in the landfill, large commercial mulch companies use often grind these materials up and incorporate it into mulch. These materials can be sourced from recycled wood pallets, construction debris, toxic and hazardous materials.
The University of Massachusetts Extension Landscape, Nursery and Urban Forestry Program found the sources used to make mulch can be surprising.
It has been found that some of the recycled waste wood used for making landscape mulch products is contaminated with various chemicals, such as creosote and CCA (chromated copper arsenate). CCA, of course, is the chemical that was used in the manufacture of pressure-treated wood.
With bans on arsenic-based wood preservatives in recent years, this may become less of a problem, though there is still plenty of CCA preserved wood to be found in older decks and fences. Sometimes wood pallets that have been used in the transport of chemical agents can become contaminated by spills of these chemicals.
The bottom line is that CCA and other toxic chemicals have been found to be contaminating soil where colored wood chip mulch has been applied. The most egregious source of the contamination appears to CCA treated wood recycled from C&D waste.
Purchasing mulch from an unreliable source can cause all your hard work to go to waste. For instance, if the bag of mulch you purchased at the big box store had toxic materials or noxious seeds, you could be spending the rest of the season pulling weeds and trying to repair the damages instead of admiring your beautiful landscape.
Bulk mulch from Reliable Peat offers the best quality, a premium not often found in bag mulch from big box stores. If you have any doubts, just look at the mulch itself. When you walk up to a pile of bulk mulch you can clearly physically see and even smell the quality. While bag mulch is a different story. It is hiding behind labels and logos. Often times it is wet and moldy, or even a different color than you were expecting.
