Took me a month to finally find somewhere in Canada that would ship polymer crystals, using a brand called Soil moist. I have a dozen window boxes to fill and read here that polymer crystals were the answer to help keep them from drying out. Upon receipt of my crystals I read the instructions and was surprised to read that they cannot be used in vegie garden, touched by bare hands (wash immediately), disposed of in compost piles, put in regular household garbage nor can the earth they were used in be recycled. The earth they are used in need to be send to the hazarded waste.
Sure am surprised to learn such harmless tiny crystals can be so intimidating. Now, I am having second thoughts about using them. Has anyone had any negative experiences with them
Barb
How to dispose of polymer crystals
I ask many questions about those latest rage to save the world crystals. I got no answers but I think you have found the answer on the labels.
Coir a little used product has most of the same values and in my opinion should be getting more grower attention. I will continue to use coir for all the benefits of those man made wonders. I do not think those crystals have any factor that supports the biological ballance of your gardens and pots. Oh yes...they do hold water but at what expense. The questions of the polimers or related products is still fully unanswered. The old saying if it looks to good to be true it likely is not..... appears to apply to another of man's man made products.
Look into coir. I think you will be pleased that you did.
Hi Barb,
I believe that either Stokes, or Lee Valley carry an environmentally safe, non-toxic variety of these crystals, I have a jar I bought several years ago, and still use, with no problems.
Watersorb claims this
With an essentially neutral pH, Watersorb super absorbent polymers will break down into nitrogen, carbon dioxide and water with no residual toxicity.
http://watersorb.org/application.htm
I remember well the words of a single book Silent Spring which stirred up the largest controversy about man made answers to biological imballances ever writen back in the 1930's or 40's. Those words were true then and remain highly respected to this day.
Assuming that the claims for this product are correct as far and clearly as they appear to be stated by Watersorb there are also clear statements that the claims depend on applied water and the need for the absorbed water to also be laced with man made fertilizers. This then suggests that leaching of those chemicals will be detained in the held water and not lost to leaching. Therefore if we can agree that there is no biological support in the retained chemical laden water there is only a delayed and longer presence of those elements that harm or reduce the biological recovery of the soil. This product may perform well for commercial production of chemical grown crops from the greenhouses to the already largely lost biologically ballanced soils. There would seem to be no support for biological recovery of any soil into which is is placed or used. If that is what the user wants at the expence of continued lack of soil building practices this product will also maintain a slower loss of productivity. The saving of water is based on ample rainfall or to a much lesser degree for some reason of tap water. I do not quite understand this statement but it is their words.
On the other hand we have coir that in the absence of chemicals will do the same thing Watersorb will do and at the same time be adding total biological support to existing biological structure in your soil and in your pots if you use alive and working soil and compost in your mediums. Coir does not hold the same amount of water. It releases less but the reason is simple enough. Coir is actively being broken down by your living soil biological players to make proven better healthy soil. That percentage of water is supporting a ballanced biological community. If one continues to desire to use the man made fertilizers one may deduct that it would be a waste of money and time to use organic materials to achieve healthy soil.
I wish Rachel Carson were alive, writing and observing today. I believe she would be speaking similar words and considerations that I have written. I'm sure her abilities and use of words would be hated by the big corporate positions and answers to soil problems that she so clearly presented those many years ago.
I can not agree with the use of polimers when choir as an organic player is commonly available. We do not need any studys or misleading sales talk to justify anything that will rot and build the healthier soil. To my thinking we have had enough magic in the pill box bags of man that do not support the alive and living soil.
Watersorb is not an option, it does not appear to be available for purchase in Canada that I can find. Received an email from them where they say they do not ship to Canada or are available in Canada for a variety of reasons.
Thanks docgipe for the info........I think I will go back to just watering my window boxes regularly. We are going to be out of the country for a few weeks this summer so to make life easier on my brother (who will do my watering) I thought I would use the crystals.
The polymer crystals are a petroleum byproduct, consisting of carbon and hydrogen. They will break down over time in the soil, and more quickly when exposed to UV rays of the sun. The Canadian government is hyperventilating when it talks about the hazards associated with these products. I speak from personal experience as I tried for over 5 years to get my product (polymer based) approved in Canada and was met with nothing but bureaucratic hogwash. And thanks to Rachel Carson, thousands of people in Africa are still dying of malaria because of her fake alarmism over the effects of DDT.
Yes we have heard this many times over. It simply just is not so. The number one killer is aids. Most of the world now sees Rachel Carson as being right on target quite some time before the rest of the world caught up with her intellegent thinking and writing. Representatives of the great petro based chemical world allways respond with a claim like this. It must be response #1 in the check those who diagree with us book of play calls. This was not then and is not now anywhere close to being a factual claim.