NBC News Feature- How Safe Is Your Mulch?

Monday June 2, 2003

NBC WBBH
How Safe Is Your Mulch?

LEE COUNTY, June 2, 2003- Glenn Jones

The common landscaping mulch many use around their yards could be toxic, because mulch sometimes comes from chemically treated wood. Whenever that happens, arsenic residue might end up as close as your front door. When the Cheffer family embarked on their five-day project to build a new backyard playground, they figured they'd use about 75 bags of mulch. What they didn't know was that there is a chance a known carcinogen is in that mulch. "I wouldn't think about contamination in mulch of a playground," said Brian Cheffer. The truth is it's tough to know which mulch is potentially dangerous.

At Fort Myers Forestry Resources, almost all mulch comes directly from trees. But at smaller mulching plants, recycled material often goes through the grinder and if that old wood from the house or deck was treated with chromated copper arsenate, it winds up in the mulch, and sometimes on a playground. "You can imagine how much it leeches when the rains come. The arsenic's in the soil and you can imagine what it does to people and their hands," said U.S. Senator Bill Nelson.

In a worst-case scenario, arsenic treated products can cause cancer in children after prolonged exposure. Statistics show somewhere from 2 to 10 children out of a million will get cancer from chromated copper arsenate, which is also found in swingsets, decks, and playground equipment. "I figured if you buy it from Home Depot or Lowe's, it's safe. They recommend it for playgrounds, so I figured it's safe," Cheffer said. There is one surefire way to make sure your mulch is coming from a virgin source. Check the label to see if says "No Recycled Material." If it does, you should be able to rest easy. But even then, no government agency regulates what kind of wood goes into the grinder or into the bag. "There's no true standards, no governing body. So it's left up to the companies and business associated with this industry to monitor themselves," said Alan Shaffer of Forestry Resources. Nelson says he wants new legislation making it illegal to mulch arsenic-treated wood. "I filed legislation and we're going to make it a law," Nelson said. Nelson says the Environmental Protection Agency is dragging its feet on the issue, so he decided to draft his own legislation. If it passes, it should provide peace of mind to consumers who didn't know that their labor of love could lead to a serious playground danger. New Option A Fort Myers company is marketing a safe, alternative mulch that also eliminates another Southwest Florida problem - invasive species. Florimulch is made out of non-native melaleuca trees into mulch. Melaleucas damage native plants and state officials have gone to great lengths to stop their spread. A bag of Florimulch costs a little more than $2.