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| I've helped a friend clear a lot and thought I did a tremendous job uprooting unwanted shrubs and trees etc. Since I never had poison ivy before I wasn't particularly careful to even look for it. I've been suffering for about a week especially on my forearms from carrying bunches of debris to put into a pile.
So I've left her with a large pile of trimmings and presumably either poison ivy or poison oak in it. My question is not about choosing to compost poison ivy. Rather I'm curious if anyone has a decent idea how long it will for take the oils to break down in a pile of fresh yard waste. That day I had suggested she rent a chipper and reduce the pile to use as mulch but that sounds like a bad idea now.... Some searching here yielded the link below. Over winter sounds reasonable, 5 years sounds like a stretch, but someone mentioned possibly getting a reaction from compost made with poison in it. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Disposing of poison ivy
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Most all of the information I have been able to find on how long the Urushiol stays active is that on tool handles it is not active after two weeks. Few people I know keep any of the plant material around long enough to find out whether it can create problems in 6 or 12 months. Poison Ivy, Oak, or Sumac is one of the vegetative wastes that probably should not be composted. |
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- Posted by borderbarb (My Page) on Thu, Jul 22, 10 at 10:11
| From my own experience, I know that the Urushio stays active on clothing for over a year. I washed some clothes my son left and was affected by the poison oak/ivy residue on them. I didn't know what it was, as had not been in the wilds for years, but a Dr. identified the lesions. I am highly HIGHLY allergic to poison ivy/oak and literally wouldn't touch with a 10 ft. pole! |
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- Posted by albert_135 Sunset 2 or 3 (My Page) on Thu, Jul 22, 10 at 13:16
| Googling ~ compost poison ivy site:.gov site.edu ~ turns up several who say on Google's snippet something to the affect 'do not compost'. |
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- Posted by joepyeweed 5b IL (My Page) on Wed, Jul 28, 10 at 14:33
| First of all, just because the urushiol stays active on clothing or tools for over a year, doesn't mean its going to do that in the compost pile. When the oil gets on clothing or tools, it doesn't decompose, its still there. When the plants and their components decompose they are no longer whatever they were, they are now broken down into their base components of carbon and nitrogen... That being said, I don't compost poison ivy because I run a cold, slow composting process that its rarely turned and doesn't decompose everything completely. I have seen poison ivy composted at our church composting operation. Its a large facility that uses hot composting, with large volumes of wood chips and they use a small front end loader to turn the piles. The manager told me to go ahead and put the poison ivy that we weeded out of the church landscape into his active pile. I probably would not home compost the stuff, but I wouldn't hesitate to compost it in a commercial, large scale operation, where everything gets hot, stays hot and is mechanically turned. |
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| I would not compost or compost at a high green,hot compost. |
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