Honeysuckle Prose

Umbra on burning yard waste 12

Dear Umbra,

Your recent column seemed to be discussing mostly the burning of trash. What about yard waste? Each year I pull out tons of non-native and invasive honeysuckle. There is far too much to take to a landfill, and it would take years to rot down if left in some kind of compost pile. I know the burn gives off some CO2, but I honestly don't know what else I can do. Does your "prohibition" extend equally to this kind of burning?

Bruce Scott
Columbus, Ohio

Dearest Bruce,

It's not my prohibition, and I'm not sure why you put prohibition in quotes. I am confused by you, and you are confused by me. How will we ever know world peace when even a writer and a reader cannot understand one another? I did not say enough about what entails "burning" and "backyard burning" -- let me try to be more complete.

His crime? Weed burning ... no, not that kind!

Photo: iStockphoto

The only true prohibiting happens on the part of your local and/or state governments. To find out about yard waste burning in Columbus, I first went to EPA HQ, then clicked on Ohio and landed in an amply prohibitive Q&A page. There are restricted areas and burn situations all over the state, including in municipal areas, so you'll definitely need to look up Columbus' status. Interesting digression from main topic: burning dead animals is never allowed in Ohio, but using fires to keep striking workers warm is always allowed. The rest of you should look up your state environmental protection agency. You may be surprised about their opinions and regulations.

Planet-warming carbon dioxide is not the main concern expressed by your friendly Ohio regulators; the trouble is the general air pollution. Everything I've said about low-heat fires, smoldering, ground-level air pollution, and human health applies to any type of backyard burning.

Commercial hauling can be costly in terms of cash, but here is where I point out that backyard burning can be costly in terms of your health. (I know it sounds like that came from a can labeled "Eco-Column Bromide," so I'll just use the whole can and point out, apropos of nothing, that we all need to reduce our single-occupancy car trips.) Costs aside, backyard burning may be illegal and get you in the clink! Enabling the honeysuckle to completely smother your yard while you smolder away behind bars.

The government truly does not want you to burn anything in your yard. The government does not want you to burn wood indoors if your stove is inefficient. There is no way around this plain talk from the EPA.

What to do with your piles of invasives, and what should other readers do with piles of tree prunings and fallen limbs? It is a dilemma. Ohio solid-waste landfills do not accept yard waste for disposal -- it is prohibited. Either you (plural) find a hauler and disposer of yard wastes such as a composting facility or an exempted landfill, or you create your own private composting facility.

Yes, I mean the dreaded pile of rotting invasives in the corner of the yard. The pile will eventually rot -- though it might indeed take years -- and your yard will be more of a closed system. Others of you wrote in about large tree limbs left from pruning or weather events. These could be cut up and burned to warm striking workers, or put through a rented or borrowed chipper-shredder, turned to mulch, and spread on your yard or the yard of thankful neighbors. Chipping services will no doubt be happy to shred and haul your tree limbs for a fee.

I'm imaginative in general, but in this case I think paying to have your yard waste hauled or finding a way to keep it -- through piling or shredding -- are your only choices. It is a bitter pill to pay someone to haul our yard waste after doing the rest of our yard work with our own two hands, but our modern tidy-yard sensibility makes it hard to keep piles of "waste" in our yard scheme. Do consider breaking with your own habits and creating a "wild pile" in a corner of your land or garden if you have the room.

Suckily,
Umbra

 

Yours is to wonder why, hers is to answer (or try). Send your green-living questions to Umbra.

Umbra Fisk is Grist Research Associate II, Hardcover and Periodicals Unit, floors 2B-4B.

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  1. Pandu Posted 4:05 am
    24 Jan 2007

    pyrogenic carbonUmbra,

    It seems to me that "prohibition" was put in quotes and referred to as "your" because you said we shouldn't burn waste at home.  
    The focus on the writer's local and state regulations is mostly wasted on about 98% of us who do not live in Ohio.  I would have appreciated some discussion of the environmental impact of burning combustibles such as tree branches (as pertains to the writer) or cereal boxes, distinguished from plastics and the like.
    It is easy to find sources that say burning releases CO2 to the atmosphere.  The chemistry is obvious.  However, when I was in college (early 90's), I remember being taught that partially burned wood gradually contributes to the REDUCTION in atmospheric CO2 by burying carbon.  Essentially, the amount of CO2 released by partial burning is less than what is accumulated in the tree when it was growing.  Here is a report that seems to support this:
    http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/bg/bgd/3/211/bgd-3-211_p.pd...
    In the report, it is estimated that in a boreal forest fire, 1-7% of the biomass is converted to pyrogenic carbon, which is estimated as having a decomposition half-life of some 10,000 years.  Perhaps a botanist can help here, but as far as I know, all the carbon in plants comes from the atmosphere.  If that is true, then partial burning can gradually reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide.  
    I'm not saying my understanding of the science is conclusive, and I'm not suggesting that we set the world on fire to reduce the greenhouse effect.  I'm just saying, fire may not be all bad.

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  2. samsmith Posted 4:36 am
    24 Jan 2007

    GoatsYou missed the best and most environmentally sensitive yard clearing tool: goats. Google it. There's goat farmers, marketing themselves as green weed clearing, all around. They bring the goats to your place, the goats eat, they leave. Bing, bang, boom. I'm sure they'd love some honeysuckle.

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  3. jmccallum Posted 4:45 am
    24 Jan 2007

    Yard "waste"Once upon a time, a long long time ago when I was young and innocent (and that was a long long time ago)I burned a pile of leaves and branches in my garden plot.  It was a dark and stormy night - the high school football field lighting across the street illuminated the smoke from my fire like London in the Blitz.  The local fire company stopped by to say "hi" and remind me that open fires are illegal in Montgomery County, Maryland, which was highly embarassing because I used to be on their governing Fire Board.  Anyway, my solution now is to make sure my yard waste (the stuff that cannot be composted within a decade or so, and avoiding poison ivy), is very dry.  Then, with other good wood or charcoal -I legally use it to cook my steaks!  Sometimes, it makes a very interesting taste combination.  and the Fire Department leafs me alone now.

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  4. bkrell Posted 5:50 am
    24 Jan 2007

    Lawnmower?I've yet to find a honeysuckle vine that won't succumb to mulching mode on my $99 Home Depot lawn mower.  Really, I barely even need a compost pile.  I have a small one for large branches that I eventually chop up and use strategically to stem soil erosion.  

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  5. jfellrath Posted 5:59 am
    24 Jan 2007

    Columbus SWACOI have to wonder what part of Columbus Bruce is from.  Columbus's Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio does yard waste pickups on the same day that they pick up our recycling in our neighborhood.  He should look into it at http://www.swaco.org/SmartPeople/Disposal.aspx#yard
    They are smart and suggest composting on the site, but they also give some other ways to get rid of yard waste.  

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  6. Pandu Posted 6:03 am
    24 Jan 2007

    lawnmowers?

    Is burning gasoline in a lawnmower preferable to burning wood?
    My head spins.  

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  7. willa Posted 9:19 am
    24 Jan 2007

    mulching/shreddingIf the stems are fine enough, an electric leaf blower with a vaccuum/mulcher attachment might reduce the stems to a manageable, compostable volume.  Otherwise, there are small wood chippers you can rent and use yourself.  Neither of these solves the "what to do with the resulting mulch" problem, but they do provide relatively low-fossil-fuel ways to make the volume smaller, which is a plus whether you're composting or paying someone to use fossil fuels to haul the stuff away.

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  8. bkrell Posted 3:48 am
    25 Jan 2007

    re burning gasoline in a lawnmowerA high combustion lawnmower engine, yes, burns much cleaner than a lazy yard burn pile.  

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  9. Pandu Posted 4:58 am
    25 Jan 2007

    a fair comparison?

    Who said a fire has to be "lazy?"  If it's maintained a little, it burns hot enough to incinerate most of the smoke.  If it's extinguished before it burns out, it sequesters some carbon.
    I don't know what a "high combustion lawnmower engine" is, and I can't seem to find any info about them.  I maintain our 'lawn' with a a few grazing animals, and a scythe; and hope to never have to buy a lawnmower.  
    I was just hoping for some balanced information about the emissions of different kinds of combustibles under various outdoor burning conditions.  Without that, I don't see how anyone can make a valid comparision between the various options.  "Much cleaner" isn't something I can quantify or verify.  

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  10. clatteramy Posted 12:44 am
    26 Jan 2007

    Broadening the subject further...We've been wrassling with a burning dilemma of our own. Let's expand from trash fire to yard waste fire to...field burning. We have around 100 acres of fields that we transformed from cattle pasture to native warm-season grass prairies through a governement conservation program. We are required to burn one field a year (approximately 30 acres). That option is becoming less and less palatable, and when our government contract is up, we're left with a choice: do we continue burning, which is a more natural choice historically for managing prairies, or do we burn fuel and mow with a tractor?
    Decisions, decisions...

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  11. wiscidea Posted 3:05 am
    26 Jan 2007

    Not much immediate help, but...You might want to talk with a restoration ecologist. Your decision regarding burning or mowing is going to depend on your local climate, what you want that pasture to look like, what you intend to do with it, and what sort of invasive plants are around it.
    For example, burning is important for prairie ecosystems because it removes the litter and allows the ground to warm up early. Mowing will not accomplish this, though you might consider haying it and removing the material. This might be a compromise.
    Why is burning becoming less palatable? It is a natural process that encourages the native grassland community. There is still a net gain in carbon storage in the soil... if that is what is bothering you... prairie plants put a large fraction of their carbon deep into the soil.

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  12. wagonfullapancakes Posted 12:49 am
    03 Feb 2007

    this time it's not the CO2 you have to worry aboutThe reason towns and cities usually limit yard waste burning is because 1) they don't want to have to put out any fires that get out of control, especially in densely populated areas, and 2) the fine particles generated by low-temperature combustion are pretty dangerous - aggravating asthma, increasing long-term cancer risk, etc.  A "well-tended" open fire still will produce lots of particulate matter; the average home wood-stove produces a lot even though it gets much hotter and more evenly hot than a pile of burning brush ever could.
    In terms of carbon, whether you deal with yard waste by burning or composting, most of the carbon will eventually end up back in the atmosphere, where it came from in the first place.  Any charcoal produced in parts of the fire that didn't get enough oxygen is almost pure carbon, in a form that will take a very long time to return to the atmosphere.  However, the vast majority of C in burning yard waste is released to the atmosphere immediately.  If you compost, you are keeping the carbon sequestered for longer (the end product of your compost pile is about 50% C dry mass, and will continue to decompose many years after you put it in the garden).  Ironically, the best way to sequester the C in yard waste would be to put it in a landfill - without sufficient oxygen, decomposition will take a very long time.  However, most localities wisely prohibit disposing of yard waste in costly and rapidly-filling landfills.
    The bottom line is that a properly maintained compost pile is by far the lowest-impact way to deal with your yard waste.  If built properly, it will kill weed seeds nearly as effectively as a fire would, and it saves you from having to breathe in all that soot.  As for honeysuckle, be very aggressive with it starting early in the season, and you won't have such a huge unsightly pile (full of seeds!) to deal with in the fall.

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