The use of scalpings/planings

[Barry]

Our allotment site is bisected by an 8-10ft wide path which we have recently surfaced using recovered road surfacing material (known either as scalpings or planings). We had permission to do this from our local council and they initially supplied us with them, but we had to beg others from one of the companies doing road resurfacing work. All well and good. However, one of our more opinionated plot holders claims that using this material will poison the soil. A lot of our plots are edged by the path, so we often grow plants within a foot or too of this scalpings-covered path. Does anybody out there have any reason to believe this could be dangerous? I don't think so, especially since farm paths are often made of this material, with fields of various crops grown right up to the edge. Any comments anybody?

[oldherbaceous]

Hello Barry, when i used to be in the building trade we used a lot of planings for drives, hard standings and tracks. I can't see there being any problem for you, especially since you are only resufacing. I take it they will only be a couple of inches deep.
Like any tar based material there will always be a very slight tar residue, but i can't see this being anymore than off a tarmac drive or path.
I'm sure that someone will have some facts and figures though.

Kind regards Old Herbaceous.

Theres no fool like an old fool.

[Johnboy]

Hi Barry and OH,
Hereabouts Scalpings are purely rock chippings and
rock dust and are made from Limestone and there is no Tar content in it at all.
I do beleive that scaplings may be made from different materials in different parts of the country. In various places Hogging is used for the same purposes. Hogging generally comes from areas where a clay and stone combination form a layer over an area where sand is to be extracted.
I cannot see any material used for the pupose to which you have put it could be in the slightest bit obnoxious.

[pigletwillie]

I work in a quarry so am speaking from experiance here. Scalpings generally are the top few inches of a roads surface that is scrapped off prior to being resurfaced. It is generally granite covered in bitumen with added sand and filler depending upon the road surface. It is reused now as recycled materials do not carry any aggregate tax like new product.

The product will not poison the soil as the bitumen sets up really hard as it is suitable for use on motorways etc.

Using planings is ecologically sound as it is reusing quarried materials, saving stone that would otherwise have to be dug out of the ground. We extract some 4 million tonnes of very hard granite a year from our site, most of which ends up in infrastructure or road building.

[Guest]

Thanks for the advice everybody.I hadn't thought we were spreading poison on the our paths, but you never know. I remember reading about an allotment that did something similar, but using a material from a processsing plant, which turned out to be so dangerous that the whole allotment site had to be abandoned!
Sadly, in our case, we have one member whose only enjoyment in life, other than growing vegetables, is to pick fault with absolutely everything and then moan about it and point fingers. Get this: we have youths climb over the fence, pick up large chunks of scalpings and then throw them into the gardens of houses that border our site. The abovementioned misery then gets talking to them and stirs up trouble. They now claim it is our fault that they have this problem, because we have scalpings on site. Surely it is a police matter?!
Anyway, OH, although I nowadays live in NW Kent, I am originally from Elstow in Bedfordshire. Where are you located?

[Barry]

Sorry, the Guest was me; I wasn't logged in.
I should point out that the misery talks to the householders, not the youths chucking scalpings!

[oldherbaceous]

Hello Barry, hope those answers have put your mind at rest. It's so annoying that one person can stir so much trouble up, i used to work with someone like that and i'm sure it's knocked five years off my life. theres nothing worse than bad feelings.
I live in a little village near Woburn.

Kind regards Old Herbaceous.

Theres no fool like an fool.

[peter]

Chap I work with is a Conservation Volunteer and his group used to use scalpings and is now not allowed to.

Some concern about petroleum based tar component leaching out into the soil.

Seems silly as the damm stuff covers virtually every road in the UK. Might just be cos he generally works in Nature Reserve type areas.

I'll talk to him Tuesday, if he is in and get the grimy details.

[Johnboy]

Hi Peter,
Where does all this stop! I feel that it is all part and parcel of this always being correct. As I see it we will end up disappearing up our own Fundemental orifi doing sod all. It comes from people sitting behind desks with not enough to do.
The Airforce saying for that was 'flying a desk.' We used to get flying instructions which were obviously from somebody not remotely familiar with flying.
The content of your posting really pisses me off.
We call recently removed road surfaces Planings and Scalpings are simply crushed rock. I have a quarry down the road to me and they are referred to as such on their price list. I know that Piglet works in a quarry and they use the term differently I rather think that it's where you come from.
My Car Park is made from planings and over the years I have not noticed anything suffereing from their prescence.

[peter]

Did not intend to piss you off, just warning that the nannies do worry aboutt it.

I agree wholeheartedly and stand corrected on terminology, I WAS refering to planings.
I'll still ask though, just to find out why.

My father who was head of a Secondary Modern was RAFVR and went through WWII, flew a desk for the Chindit Brigade in supply(eyesight), seconded to the Army to explore Nepal for caves & routes, on the strength of his prewar potholing/caverning/fell walking (believe he found a Wookey Hole exit doing his botany degree on cave flora), anyway he used to regard County Hall as the enemy sometimes and would write such things as TUAL and FIRR on their missives about how to run his school. I reckon he would be in jail nowadays.

Did you hear this week of the elderly Major(?) who police arrested for endangering himself by rescuing his belongings from his burning house while waiting fot the fire brigade to arrive, they took over 40 minutes?


Tear Up and Laugh.

File in Round Receptacle (wastebin)

[Johnboy]

Hi Peter,
It sounds like I was shooting the messenger but I was pissed off with the content of what you had to report.
Certainly Office Wallahs are a necessary evil but they should not be put in a position where they can make a descision on something they know absolutely nothing about it. I suspect this is what has occurred with the content of your last posting.

[peter]

JB, sorry for the delay.

Apparently the use of road planings by my colleagues conservation volunteer group as path surfacing is banned due to the leaching out of the petroleum/tar content into the surrounding ground. Heavy metals were also mentioned.

I suspect that this is a concerned person (not my colleague) extrapolating serious research into what-if on the basis of ignorance, or lawyers.

They probably read some research about leachate from recycled materials and made some erroneous assumptions without completely reading the research.

Oil and tar are, strangely enough, natural, even organic products, they bio-degrade. Geological evidence on the south coast points to an ancient oil "spill" to dwarf everything humanity has spilt, and it has all gone.

As for the heavy metals, they exist in loads of stuff, Arsenal soccer club has had to withdraw sale of seats from its (now) old ground to fans because an analysis found traces of cadmium in the plastic and they were worried they'd be sued if someone used the seat a lot indoors, wore it down and ingested/accumulated the rubbed off dust over a long period and got poisoned!

You can't make it up, can you.