• Post Reply Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic
permaculture forums growies critters building homesteading energy monies kitchen purity ungarbage community wilderness fiber arts art permaculture artisans regional education skip experiences global resources cider press projects digital market permies.com pie forums private forums all forums
this forum made possible by our volunteer staff, including ...
master stewards:
  • Carla Burke
  • John F Dean
  • Timothy Norton
  • Nancy Reading
  • r ranson
  • Jay Angler
  • Pearl Sutton
stewards:
  • paul wheaton
  • Tereza Okava
  • Andrés Bernal
master gardeners:
  • Christopher Weeks
gardeners:
  • Jeremy VanGelder
  • M Ljin
  • Matt McSpadden

Chicken wire contaminating soil with lead?

 
Posts: 154
14
2
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
Really interesting post showing how chicken wire leads to contaminated soil directly underneath where it is used.  https://tamararubin.com/2018/04/chicken-wire-mesh-hardware-cloth-2201-ppm-lead-cadmium/

she lists some alternatives.  wondering if anyone has had their soil tested for lead before, as well as after using galvanized steel products?
 
gardener
Posts: 1050
Location: Zone 6 in the Pacific Northwest
536
2
homeschooling hugelkultur kids forest garden foraging chicken cooking bee homestead
  • Likes 1
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
We we're just looking into this as well. I was horrified to realize I could be contaminating my soil. I have not tested our soil. We had a huge problem with voles digging into our raised beds from underneath and decimating the plants so we removed all the dirt so we could line the bottom with wire but definitely didn't want to line it with wire containing lead. We ended up buying stainless steel wire mesh instead of regular galvanized chicken wire. It was more expensive but I think it was worth it.
 
Posts: 762
Location: Morocco
109
cat forest garden trees solar wood heat woodworking
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
I have a suspicion this might be quite common. Steel gets recycled and if a batch was not totally free of lead, the output is contaminated.

Try to find the safety datasheet of steel products:
One random result for carbon steel wire (what is uses in wire mesh) has 0.0 - 1.0% lead listed.
 
Felicia Rein
Posts: 154
14
2
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator

Jenny Wright wrote:We ended up buying stainless steel wire mesh instead of regular galvanized chicken wire. It was more expensive but I think it was worth it.



can you share what you bought?
 
Jenny Wright
gardener
Posts: 1050
Location: Zone 6 in the Pacific Northwest
536
2
homeschooling hugelkultur kids forest garden foraging chicken cooking bee homestead
  • Mark post as helpful
  • send pies
    Number of slices to send:
    Optional 'thank-you' note:
  • Quote
  • Report post to moderator
The exact product we bought isn't in stock anymore but it was like this.  
Screen-Shot-2021-05-31-at-10.42.38-AM.png
[Thumbnail for Screen-Shot-2021-05-31-at-10.42.38-AM.png]
 
No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. This time, do it with this tiny ad:
Learn Permaculture through a little hard work
https://wheaton-labs.com/bootcamp
reply
    Bookmark Topic Watch Topic
  • New Topic