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I don't burn anything. Shred paper and wood makes chips, organic material is composted. We have garbage service once a month and a recycle container twice a month pickup. They do not recycle glass here so it goes in the garbage. The worst affenders here are the people with outdoor wood burners. What all do they burn in them, makes a lot of smoke that stays low and S-T-I-N-K-S....James
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Check not only the local laws, but the state laws. Washington outlawed burning trash, with the exception of plant matter in some areas, over 30 years ago. The fine if you are caught is 1000.00 or more. Our neighbor got caught by fish and game when they were up here looking at something else. Trash burning is one of the biggest causes of forest fires in the west--and if you start one you will pay. Beside that the smoke goes somewhere, and is a problem for many people with breathing problems.
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A pit is not the best way. You need good air supply, or as mentioned, it simply smolders and is incomplete. Please take into account your downwind neighbors, and avoid the plastics and such.
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I just wish I had the option to not buy stuff with plastic packaging or major plastic components for that matter. Plastic is not good. It belongs in the specialty category of materials, use it only when its the ONLY practical option, not use it to cheapen everything. Metal and glass are easily recycled. Plastic isnt.
And those that invented the packaging with plastic layered with cardboard and aluminum need to be hung up at town gates by their gonads, using barb wire.... |
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Anything that you would want to burn and that burns well would be better off in the ground.
Anything you wouldnt want to stand in the smoke of is better in the land fill. But you moved out there to enjoy right? So burn natural wood as sticks and limbs in the pit for fun. Compost most plant material and make a trip to the land fill now and then. And those big logs you got burning but dont want to stay up all night watching burn out? Put them out and bury them! Charcol is great for the soil. |
We live on 5 acers and have no recycling, except to go the recycling center (20 miles away). We take the recycling (plastics, metal, paper) in once a month when we go to the the big city. Most everything else is fed to the dogs, cats, goats and poultry. Now, as person that has had to put up with a neighbor that burns his trash. The smell/air is toxic, my animals run for the barns, not much help. I have to shut up my house, not much help. The smell is sickening, I have spoken with the neighbor and he still burns. But in smaller amounts more often, and sometimes at night. Be a sleep and wake up to that smell. Now it is illegal to burn garbage in my state, but the DEQ, doesn't have the man power to go there and the local fire department has no power to do anything, unless it is a no burn day. If you decide to burn the trash, just remember to light it when the wind is blowing towards your house.
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I have made it very plain to my neighbors that if I can see or smell a trash fire I will have no problem calling the fire dept to come put it out for them. I will usually warn them and ask them not to, but we are 10 miles from the volunteer fire dept, and fire can run very fast in the woods. If they can't afford trash pickup--37.00 for 3 months--they can't afford to pay for my house or barn. If you just moved into the neighborhood you might not want to start trouble with burning trash.
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We burn some paper in our wood stoves to get them started in the morning. Mostly the feed bags, paper and envelopes that comes in the mail. Not the glossy paper, and we don't buy newspapers or magazines anymore, so we don't have any of them to burn. I stopped burning anything with a bad odor because our horses are breathing that. They would be out there making faces and I realized they did not like that. So we stopped immediately and that was some years back.
Our state has outlawed outside fires unless they are in a pit, I think. And they don't allow even paper to be burnt, let alone plastic. We are fortunate to have the county landfill pretty close to our home, so it is no big thing to take our recyclables there. I have been trying to limit plastic as much as possible when I am shopping, so I have less and less of it. By making more foods from scratch, means I buy less plastic in the store. Less to get rid of later. |
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Our burn pits were worse because they were always at least at a smolder. Before we managed to train the locals to stay away from our base we had to patrol inside our burn pit to keep the local trash pickers out. I can't fully explain the smell, but I can't deal with it. I hate burning trash. |
I'm surprised at the amount of burning that still occurs as I read through this thread, and I am no environut! We "collect" our recyclables, plastic, glass, milk jugs, cardboard, paper, magazines, glass, cans, etc. and recycle them about once a month. We burn yard trimmings, and occasionally old tax returns/personal info.
I am neutral with burning, really, but we just find it much, much, neater and cleaner to recycle. There is nothing quite as lovely as a yucky burning barrel to put an eyesore on a well kept yard. Ashes, cans, and melted stuff all yucky! My wife is a very organizational master of design, and so that helps alot. Used to burn everything too. One of the things that stopped us from burning initially, was that the 55 gallon drums we would get our farm oil in, were no longer manufactured using steel. They all went to plastic. Not a great burning barrel appliance! |
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It would be better burning then have it just laying around to blow around. It then would be better if a person doesn't want to burn to get a back hoe, and get a hole dug and keep buying it like some do in other places. And compact it down. |
Re burn barrels empty ash often or be like me and wait until the bottoms rust out or the barrel is too heavy to lift..... That's kind of a self correcting behavior. Recycling isn't available everywhere and rural trash pickup has never graced my county so one group burns everything that will burn and the environmental people burn nothing. The two groups do share some common ground though. They each slip into town at night and dump their respective wastes in some business dumpster who then is saddled with the cost of disposal. I do agree that I wouldn't use the family weenie roast fire pit as my burn site...
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Wow, this thread is old, I had forgotten about some of the people. What ever happened to Quint???? I always liked his posts.
Anyways, I burn cardboard and paper occasionally, but not too much. I never burn plastic because I know it's not good. |
Reading some of the replies on this topic makes me glad for once that I live in California with strict environmental laws. Here any burning of garbage is illegal. Lots of people burn wood/paper products around here but plastics is a whole different thing. I know that I for one hate smelling somebody's plastics burning.
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i didn't really get it from anywhere. i did lots of internet searching and couldn't find any answers so they were my two cents. its just from my experience as a scientist.
polymers always breakdown into their monomers during reactions like burning. there are always side reaction too that make unintended products. plastics with lots of benzene rings in them are likely to make combustion products that also contain benzene rings, like PHA's. complex benzene ring structures are thermodynamicaly unlikely to form spontaniously during burning from plastics which don't contain any. the Cl in anything always forms HCl when its burnt, because of thermodynamics. for the same reason, plastics with nitrogen, like nylon, will mostly form N2 or NOx but some small amount will form cynide CN. how much i dont know. |
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