Treated timber use.

There was a topic about the dangers or otherwise of treated timbers
Now I do not know the truth of all the comments, but I do know scraps should not be burnt, so I take it something is amiss.
Given that I use alternatives where I can, concrete, steel etc.

But I watch people everywhere burnt it, even when they are told it should not be!!!
I hear, ' its only me doing it", what does it matter?, who cares? etc.
I worked in the area of keeping mess out of rivers for 8 years, I am mind full of the advantages of reusing and recycling, but I am also aware most people do not care or are not even interested.
For that reason after spending 50 years trying to draw attention to the issue, I have given up.

When I now explain "I dont care, the sooner you people wreck and kill the earth, the better, because only then will you realise the effects of your ignorance"
Its a bit like that Indian proverb about when the last tree has been cut down, then you will realise that money cannot feed you.

The masses turn on me and suggest I am nuts etc, I can stand my ground and I explain how even those now abusing me have done nothing to improve things,
have actively done harmful stuff and I give examples of their own behaviour.
They get angry and defensive, I can push hard and I ask them why are you annoyed, when you have behaved like pigs in the past?

At that stage they are senseless and I just walk out leaving them with their anger and their thoughts.

Its payback time for me I tell them.
So far I obviously have lived after each encounter.

We all have different ways of dealing with 'bad guys'. Being angry just seems to me to be the way to get either an ulcer or a kick in the teeth. I'm leaning more towards Paul's approach - doing what I can without getting angry at the bad guys. You can't change the world single handedly -and remember you are not single handed anyway - there are millions of good Permies and Permie-people who haven't made it here yet!
Edward has a similar problem and felt like giving up because he felt like the voice in the wilderness here: feel like giving up
Paul's way is just to get on with building that better world in his backyard! https://permies.com/t/150190/change-world-triple-emphasis-person
I hope these links help a little.

Nancy Reading wrote:
Edward has a similar problem and felt like giving up because he felt like the voice in the wilderness here: feel like giving up

Thanks Nancy for reminding me of how far I’ve come in a year . . . A very emotional year.
I haven’t seen or spoken to my friend since then.

I can certainly understand where John is coming from. And reading Paul’s book was what brought me to Permies in the first place. I should reread it now and see how far up the Wheaton Scale I’ve climbed. I don’t have any answers. I’m a lot less angry than I was a year ago. I have some land and a house and put some aspects of Permaculture into practice which has been a big help. I’ve also left NJ which was a toxic place for me and my beliefs. I am much better at identifying rising anger, I turn it on itself and mostly explore the issue through empathy and gratitude, two words I really didn’t understand a few years ago. For example:

This morning I listened to a news report from Florida, recently wrecked by hurricane Ian. The reporter was talking to a guy whose house had flooded. He had ignored the storm surge warnings believing it was ‘cry wolf’ as previous warnings had amounted to nothing. This time, he realised it was real when he went to his garage and saw floating gas cans and leaf blowers . . . i.e. more than one leaf blower. (I think leaf blowers are one of mans most evil creations.)

A year ago I would have got mad. Now I have a much better understanding of why the guy stayed and why he doesn’t see the link between his lifestyle choice and climate change. There’s too much over exaggeration of disasters, too much speculation up front that when disasters do hit, it comes as a shock. I’ve experienced this my self - NJ has a mandatory text alert system for extreme weather events and it would ping way too often. When we did get a huge downpour and half the town flooded, it was the first time the warnings would have helped but it was so localised that it still would have been a false alert for most people. As for the link between his lifestyle and climate change . . . My eldest son’s mantra after two years of American High School - conform, conform, conform. He was rote taught, penalised for questioning anything he was fed, even when it was wrong. Having spent six years in an IB school where you are given the tools for self learning, critical thinking, question and research everything, he really struggled and was held back because he enquired. Fortunately we’ve now moved and my second son has just started a new High School in a new state and school district. They encourage open conversation. It’s a long way from IB but so far he’s thriving.

When you have an education system that encourages conformity and you’re only taught what your school board sets as the curriculum, rather than a national body of educational experts, it doesn’t surprise me that so many people can’t connect their own behaviour with the destruction of the planet. And I haven’t mentioned social media, traditional media and the news, lack of advertising controls, lobbying of governments at all levels . . . So people believe what they want to believe and seek out channels where their beliefs are reinforced and a doctrine of conformity makes free thought and action hard. So I’m not angry at the guy with the leaf blowers. I’m sad that he’s lost his home and he doesn’t have the mental and support tools to connect the dots.

Anyhoo . . . Hope you all have a better w/e than the people of Florida.

I like and really appreciate gentle reminders about ecological management issues.

I think one of the big problems most people lower on the eco-scale (myself included) face is just remembering to do what's good for the environment. The mainstream flow of things is not very kindly oriented to the environment, but I don't think MOST people are actively trying to poison themselves or the world. The vocal minority make it seem like this isn't the case.

So gentle reminders like attractive signs at the dump or recycling center reminding people about core issues.

In social encounters I find gentle reminders to sound something like "I figured out a way to re-use a bunch of treated wood I have so I don't have to release all those toxins into the air or soil." And then tell them about your amazing re-use project.

Or something along those lines.

Abrasive reminders and encounters turn me off. Gentle ones feel like a nudge in the right direction.

Thanks for the great replies.

John, I'm working with a social enterprise that takes in construction and demolition debris. Lots of treated timber. We are getting ready to build a prototype biochar facility there to deal with the boron-impregnated stuff, since it's the least problematic and you can actually use the biochar on soil as long as you don't put it in places that are already high in boron (we have B-deficient soils in several regions, so the problem could become the solution).

The next phase of the plan is to use the expected success of the project to add a scrubber to the stack so that we can process tanalised timber in a responsible manner. I certainly understand your frustration, as I have seen countless rural slash piles riddled with old fence strainers and battens get set alight and cast a toxic pall over entire districts. I have given up calling the regional council to report and try to get better enforcement. But I'm hoping that we can show them a safer way to manage the problem and then introduce some incentives to get better behaviour.

I just talked to a colleague of mine in Vic earlier this week and he's on a similar trajectory.

I think this is a valuable discussion to have. In the UK I think copper-chrome-arsenic is the most likely stuff impregnating timbers, although more recent timber doesn't have the arsenic deliberately added I believe.
The other thing to consider is that older timber that I come across is so much better quality that the new stuff we can buy - I'd far rather use it again safely if that is possible than destroy it.

For true offcuts that have lower value or no-value in use, I have begun reading more and more into remediation methods.

The biochar process seems to be something that might create value, assuming that the 'ick' is adequately removed.

Another process that has caught my eye is the utilization of certain fungus that have developed a taste for the stuff they use in treated timber. There has been reports of some strains of Neolentinus lepideus that not only grows on conifers but has been seen on treated railroad ties as well as freshly treated PT lumber. I suppose a good question is what to do with the fruiting bodies after they have flushed but I haven't gotten that far in my thought process.