Kitchen Garden Forum

Can I put the contents of my hoover bag in my compost bin? Can it stay in the bag or should it be removed (ugh) Does the bag contain chemicals?

Angela

quirkas wrote:Can I put the contents of my hoover bag in my compost bin? Can it stay in the bag or should it be removed (ugh) Does the bag contain chemicals?

Angela

Hi Angela

Short answer: Bin it!

If your house is carpeted, the carpet is probably full of flame proofing chemicals which are quite toxic, these are also in our furnishings, in fact recently some folk got really bad burns from chemicals added this way.
We have wood floors so I can safely add the sweepings which is just animal hairs dead skn cells and what walks in from the garden.

Carpets are even banned on some allotment sites now because of the risk of chemical contamination

Nature's Babe wrote:If your house is carpeted, the carpet is probably full of flame proofing chemicals which are quite toxic, these are also in our furnishings, in fact recently some folk got really bad burns from chemicals added this way.
We have wood floors so I can safely add the sweepings which is just animal hairs dead skn cells and what walks in from the garden.

The burns were from a very toxic antifungal chemical used to prevent mould growth on sofas shipped from China to the UK.

As for carpet, new carpets emit many volotile organic compounds, much as fresh paint does, source Greenpeace commissioned research.
So wood or ceramic floors are healthier.

As regards use for mulch in gardening of old carpet, it does not emit volotiles as that has pretty well all happened in your house.

99.99....% of the nonsense written about old carpet containg hundreds of toxins comes from American steam cleaning companies, who are trying to scare people to buy their services by banging on about what people have walked on outside, according to their websites the sweepings from your floors should be treated like nuclear waste!

The garden carpet tips are, never use foambacked as the foam physically breaks into tiny bits and gets everywhere and could be harmful, all-wool will rot so you won't be able to lift it, the nylon backed is basically weed membrane with coloured woollen tufts on, finally never ever leave carpet in place as longterm cover as it is wellnigh impossible to dig up a carpet buried six inches down.

We dug up old carpeting that had been used as a weed suppressant on our plot when we were originally clearing it. It disintegrated leaving a mass of stuff that was difficult to get of. Not sure what sort it was but it was certainly a mess. It was a nightmare.

I'll second that Glallotments. I helped new tenants on the plot opposite ours, to clear weeds and we found carpet of some sort under the weeds and soil which had formed. Ye gods, it was awful stuff to get out. Only the backing remained and it was just yards and yards of stringy stuff...it took us all afternoon just to clear a few yards square of ground. Fortunately it had only been on that area or I think the new folks would have given up if the whole plot had been "carpeted".

It didn't stop the weeds either...they had simply grown through it. Ugh!
Cheers.

Hi Elaine,
There are councils up and down the country having to send in JCB's to get rid of carpets laid down by those who thought gardening was a doddle and never came back to the site when they realized that hard work was involved. Hence the ban by the majority of councils.
JB.