Apparently someone is trying to demonize sheet mulching in local #permaculture circles based on a study of chicken bedding which found that shredded cardboard had more than double the measured PFAS compared to wood chips.
unrelated use case aside (and ignoring the use of high PFAS cardboard rather than shipping boxes), by volume, with sheet mulching, you would do a layer of cardboard and 3" of wood chips to have the same effect as about 12" of woodchips alone.
So even if a layer of cardboard were 15 µg and 3" of chips were 6µg, you'd be looking at 21µg for sheetmulched vs. 24µg for chips.
But the figures are by weight. woodchips are 23.72 lbs per sq ft. cardboard is .026 lbs per sq ft.
@ai6yr that's one of the other issues with the study. it was chicken bedding made from all manner of recycled cardboard with printing and whatnot. sheet-mulching is almost always large corrugated shipping boxes, that have very few chemicals and extra stuff.
Someone who didn't understand science or even numbers or units saw the chart and freaked out.
You can't extrapolate so far out of context like that.
@ai6yr that's why I don't use Amazon boxes. I would rather they used traditional tape than their damned paper tape with strands of fiberglass.
If you miss some cellophane tape, it'll eventually come to the surface in a big chunk. Amazon tape is impossible to remove, and those strands of fiberglass will be in your garden forever.
@exador23@ai6yr I've had mine for years, and it still works well. It's not a knife, and not like a hacksaw blade.. I was surprised at how well it worked the first time I tried it.
@knowattitude@ai6yr awesome. I hate modern retractable utility knives with their expensive specialty blades, and poorly working retract mechanisms. and it's nearly impossible to find old-fashioned rectangular box-cutters that use razor blades.
@exador23@knowattitude That seems like a safer option than box cutters, for sure. I have sliced off a bunch of skin and flesh off a finger once with the box cutters (no permanent damage done in the end, but it was not fun).
@exador23@knowattitude I was thinking that was like the pumpking carving knives they give children... serrated enough to cut cardboard, but not sharp enough to cut human skin, LOL. Even if they try very hard to stab their siblings.
Wasn't that bad - only required a butterfly bandage on my finger instead of stitches. But it's etched into my memory because the doctor told me if I got it wet it would fall off.
I'm only now realizing he probably just meant the bandage, but I thought he meant my finger.
Then I made the mistake of telling other kids at school. They would chase me with water at random times the whole next week. lol.
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