Text 9. Making good decisions about what to include in your landscape

 

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By using recycled materials, you’re having a positive impact on the environment. You’re making use of what had once been considered trash, and that reduces the need to cut down trees, strip mine raw materials, and do other environmentally irresponsible things. Some recycled materials are controversial. For example, there’s concern about crumb rubber that’s made of ground up tires and used as mulch, as a base under artificial turf, and in playground mats. Zinc and other chemicals leaching from the rubber can kill plants and permanently toxify soil. The rubber also may be a fire hazard. And of course it stinks to high heaven on a hot day. Similarly, biosolids (treated sewage in common parlance) that are used as fertilizer come from uncontrolled sources that may contain contaminants or toxins. Even wood chips can contain weed seeds and contaminants. Some years ago many areas had a problem with persistent herbicides in municipal compost. The moral of this story? Investigate all claims made for recycled materials. Taking it easy with low-impact materials

Low-impact materials are those that have been produced using practices that create a minimum of harmful effects on the environment. For instance, you can look for lumber that’s been certified by an independent organization as having been sustainably grown and harvested. Such organizations include the Forest Stewardship Council in the United States (www.fscus.com) or the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (www.pefc.org). Here are a few other low-impact considerations:

✓ Use straw bale or earthen construction instead of lumber.

✓ Grow your own wood or bamboo for a low-impact, ultra-local resource.

✓ Substitute high-density polyethylene (HDPE) or galvanized piping for

PVC (polyvinyl chloride). Also avoid copper, because it’s strip mined.

✓ If you must use paints and finishes, choose those that are low in volatile

organic compounds (VOCs). Low-VOC paints don’t emit as many pollutants

into the atmosphere.

PROTECTING THE FUTURE WITH RENEWABLE MATERIALS

Simply put, a renewable resource is one that you can continually get more of. Trees are a renewable resource — you can simply plant more trees. Oil, on the other hand, is not a renewable resource. The amount of oil on the planet today is as much as there will ever be. By choosing renewable materials, you can ensure that future generations will be able to enjoy them too. Renewable materials are those that come from living sources, because they’re the only things that can replicate themselves. Examples include lumber and other wood products, bamboo, straw, animal manures, and organic fertilizers, such as bone meal, fish emulsion, and kelp.

CREATING THINGS THAT LAST: HERITAGE MATERIALS

A special category of materials includes what I call heritage materials. These materials are produced so they can be reused over and over again as circumstances change. An example is the interlocking concrete paver block systems that are beginning to pop up in driveways all over. For a long time, I truly hated these systems, mainly because of their lack of aesthetic merits. Then one day I realized that the most important thing about these pavers was the fact that they could be taken up and reused. Your driveway, 40 years from now, could become a neighbor’s driveway, and then in a few more decades it could end up in the next block as a patio in the backyard of somebody who hasn’t even been born yet.

When you create things that last and make them modular so they can be used again or repurposed, you’re doing something very sustainable indeed, because the initial environmental impact can be spread over many decades of use.