why are we discussing and suggesting the use of pressure treated wood?

I'll shut up and stay out of the thread once I understand why we are discussing the new pressure treated wood like it is something OK to use in a 'beyond organic' permaculture application?
https://permies.com/t/135792/bad-pressure-treated-wood#1068034
https://permies.com/t/135792/bad-pressure-treated-wood#1068017 (my post)

I really only have a couple hot button topics and this happens to be one

As a moderator, here are my thoughts. The title of the thread is "How bad is pressure treated wood?". I am hoping to see a discussion answering this question, and suggestions for alternatives. The OP is questioning the safety of it. This is the sort of thing I think Permies is about: people asking questions and helpful people offering answers to those questions and suggesting natural alternatives. There is a lot of good information about some of the history of treatments and explaining the acronyms of what lumber is treated with nowadays. I don't see the thread as really being about promoting the use of pressure treated lumber.

James Freyr wrote:As a moderator, here are my thoughts. The title of the thread is "How bad is pressure treated wood?". I am hoping to see a discussion answering this question, and suggestions for alternatives. The OP is questioning the safety of it. This is the sort of thing I think Permies is about: people asking questions and helpful people offering answers to those questions and suggesting natural alternatives. There is a lot of good information about some of the history of treatments and explaining the acronyms of what lumber is treated with nowadays. I don't see the thread as really being about promoting the use of pressure treated lumber.

Thank you James
Does that leave an opening for future threads like
'how bad are glyphosate herbicides'
'how bad are GMOs'
'how bad is '

I thought many of us already know 'how bad' these things are and the discussions were beyond that?

I do feel that several folks in that thread are suggesting the use of pt wood by saying it's 'not so bad' and 'I use it'.

Judith Browning wrote:
Does that leave an opening for future threads like
'how bad are glyphosate herbicides'
'how bad are GMOs'
'how bad is '

I thought many of us already know 'how bad' these things are and the discussions were beyond that?

I suppose we could speculate all day long and I am terrible at forecasting the future and I hope to never have to moderate cider press topics like those. Indeed I also think many of us already know 'how bad' these things are, but there are also many people out there on the internet that don't. Everybody visiting Permies is at a different level on the Wheaton eco scale.

I really thought that pressure treated wood was only treated with pressure. (hangs head in shame)
[in my defense here it is called "kiln treated wood" and so I just assumed it was just thrown in a pressurized kiln for a while and then voila, magically resistant wood]
So, uh, maybe some other ignorant knucklehead like myself might learn something in this thread.

Tereza Okava wrote:I really thought that pressure treated wood was only treated with pressure. (hangs head in shame)
[in my defense here it is called "kiln treated wood" and so I just assumed it was just thrown in a pressurized kiln for a while and then voila, magically resistant wood]
So, uh, maybe some other ignorant knucklehead like myself might learn something in this thread.

I think you are not alone and that is why some use it so casually.  
The key word is 'treated'.  'Kiln dried' vs 'Kiln treated'...altogether different.

I suppose that alone supports the discussion....although I still feel like that discussion has too many mentions of 'it's not so bad'.
Just because the new stuff is not as bad as the old stuff does not make it OK in my mind.

that topic is for the cider press only.

Hi there,

I'm the OP of the treated wood post. Honestly, I was surprised by the response.

Well, not the informative, discussion-based response. The "that was a bad question response".

Maybe it's because I taught MS & HS for 5 years or now teach a little (programming) in my kiddos elementary school but I truly believe there are no bad ("stupid") questions. At least ones that are worded ok (the wording issue has come up on StackOverflow). I had an honest question and researched quite a bit but couldn't find an answer. Maybe my wording was off?

When I called the local store (Jerry's in Springfield, OR) they told me that the pressure treated wood that they carry can be used in garden beds. That it's completely safe to be used next to vegetables. That the anti-fungals and whatnot do no leach into the soil. But when I asked about what happens when the wood <i>eventually</i> degrades, he didn't know.

So I asked a question here.

As per the answers in the thread, there was quite a bit of confusion as to the issues with pressure treated wood.

Would it be so terrible to have a thread called "How bad is glyphosate"? Would it be so bad having a thread explaining specifically why folks don't use it? And, like on StackOverflow, if someone asks the same question, we just close it and point the OP to the already-answered question (maybe suggesting that they research a bit before posting too)?

'cause it sure seems that "we don't ask those kind of questions here" is ... ooof, well I can't imagine someone earnestly asking a question and responding to them like that. And "this thread will self destruct in 24 hours"? Wow! Really? How's that going to stop the next person from asking the same question?

I posted the question because, as I mentioned, I have to reinstall a deer fence. Not only that, I'm downhill on a slope so it has to be pretty high. I'd love to use a steel fence but those posts aren't tall enough -- at least the ones I've seen. Until the fence fell, I'd screwed plain-old 1x2 extenders into the extant treated 4x4s and then ran wire horizontally between those. Maybe there's a supplier of extra tall steel fencing that's also somehow cheap enough and strong enough (at that height)?

<sigh> I thought I asked a good & simply-worded question.

Hi Tereza,

I am still inclined to ask, "treated with what?"

I'm going to lock this thread now.

Permies.com is for discussion of better ways of doing things.  The *minimum* standard for things we want to discuss here is organic or better.  There are plenty of other places you can discuss more toxic things, but here we want the emphasis to be on better ways. There is a section in the cider press for discussion of toxic gick if anyone with enough apples really wants to take it there, but if it takes up more than a smidgen of moderator time it's likely to get removed so we can concentrate on better things.