I plan on BOYCOTTING PEAT MOSS - Who else has the balls to do the same??

[Guest]

http://www.uel.ac.uk/news/press_releases/releases/global.htm
News Release
Monday 29 July 2002
FOR PEAT'S SAKE, UK CAMPAIGN GOES GLOBAL

Efforts by British campaigners to halt the unsustainable use of peat in horticulture have received international acclaim, just a few days after Environment Minister Michael Meacher reaffirmed the UK Government's commitment to reducing peat use by 90% before 2010.

At a meeting of the International Mire Conservation Group (IMCG) in France on 21st July, the UK was commended for the impact of its campaign to persuade the public, industry and government to stop using peat. The IMCG applauded the role of major garden centres such as B&Q in raising awareness among gardeners. However, concerns were raised that the success of the campaign in the UK might simply encourage the peat industry to start digging peat from unprotected sites in other countries - particularly in Eastern Europe.

Peat is extracted from fragile peat bogs, a globally important habitat that is rapidly disappearing - Western Europe has lost more than 90% of its original peatland, most of it in the past few decades. At a recent conference in Britain, Mr Meacher said: "These areas have been likened to our rainforests so we must do all we can to encourage the public and industry to seek alternatives to peat in the form of renewable composts made from organic waste."

Richard Lindsay, Principal Lecturer in Conservation at the University of East London, who chaired the conference, said, "Peat bogs are a vital but vanishing ecosystem. Over the past decade, the UK Peat Campaign has raised the profile of peat bogs from absolutely nowhere to the forecourts of every major Garden Centre in Britain. It is marvellous that the government is helping push for a shift away from peat to the use of recycled organic waste as a means of both protecting fragile peat bogs and solving the problem of our organic waste mountains."

Craig Bennett, Campaigner for Friends of the Earth said: "Local communities and wildlife groups in the UK have been campaigning against the use of peat in growing media for years, and we have achieved great success with the massive changes now sweeping through the British horticulture industry. But peat bogs are still under threat from big corporations world wide who are putting their profits before people and the environment. We need to make sure that the peat campaign goes global - so that these companies feel the same pressure abroad as they have done here in the UK. Only then can we begin to protect these fabulous and important habitats".

 

[bartender187]

good info in this thread, with such readily available alternatives we should all put an effort in to limit our peat use, and let ppl know what we support sustainably obtained ammendmants.

take care,
bartender187

 

[beancounter]

I use CDN Spaghnum peat moss and will continue to use it until I can find a suitable alternative within the same price range..

A 105 litre bag (3.8 ft/3) of compressed (which makes it more like 200 litres or more) Spaghnum Peat Moss costs me $6.99 CDN..
A compressed brick of Coco that makes about 10 litres costs me $3.50 CDN...

you do the math... I'd go broke switching to Coco.. And who are they kidding, compost doesn't even come close to the consistency of Peat, and the amount of time that goes into composting far outweighs the cost of Peat.

Don't get me wrong, I compost like a mofo, but unless you have a perfect composting system, the texture and nutrient content is unpredictable.

I barely have enough dry leaves to make my compost properly, so using pure leave mulch isn't an option.

I'm all for the protecting the enviroment, but until something else comes along that can compete, I'll stick to good ole Canadian Peat.

 

[Guest]

I use CDN Spaghnum peat moss and will continue to use it until I can find a suitable alternative within the same price range..

A 105 litre bag (3.8 ft/3) of compressed (which makes it more like 200 litres or more) Spaghnum Peat Moss costs me $6.99 CDN..
A compressed brick of Coco that makes about 10 litres costs me $3.50 CDN...

you do the math... I'd go broke switching to Coco.. And who are they kidding, compost doesn't even come close to the consistency of Peat, and the amount of time that goes into composting far outweighs the cost of Peat.

Don't get me wrong, I compost like a mofo, but unless you have a perfect composting system, the texture and nutrient content is unpredictable.

I barely have enough dry leaves to make my compost properly, so using pure leave mulch isn't an option.

I'm all for the protecting the enviroment, but until something else comes along that can compete, I'll stick to good ole Canadian Peat.

Can you re-use peat? NOPE!

Can you re-use coco? YEP!

After a few uses of coco you make your money's worth and after that you save compared to peat. It's that simple. Peat you cannot reuse.

 

[Guest]

A peat bog, is a place so devoid of any capacity to support any kind of life form, that the plants that live there, have to eat bugs, to survive.

a peat bog, is basically a no man's land, of dead, poisoned environment; a wasteland that comes from a dominant species wiping out every living thing in it's path, more or less;that even earthworms can't survive in.

now that, my friend, is bad.

Personally, i'm pulling for the earthworms.

The truth of the matter is, that Peat, has raped the environment of planet earth to the tune of a billion acres, so far, Effectively locking out biodiversity to the point, that even the plants that live there, have to eat bugs, to even survive. And, if you look at a picture of any bog and notice the incredible LACK of biodiversity there, you can see that there must not be many bugs.

Peat has poisoned over a billion acres of land on three continents leaving an acid ocean of lifeless, anaerobic wasteland; whose identifying characteristics are that nothing, not even the peat producing moss and grass that cause it, can keep a very good footing.

So, you need to go talk to sphagnum moss. Sphagnum moss kills off every, single, other living thing, wherever it thrives enough to become peat, except a tiny handfull of it's buddies, who are also in on the monopoly, but even THEY can't make a good living. So what does that say about THAT relationship..... Sounds like the dominant species taking control and poisoning off all but a very, very, scant few who manage to hang on thru sheer balls, themselves being manipulated by the peat into suffering an incredibly desolate and tenous existance.

As far as i know, homo sapiens is at least working, to save something other than itself.

Has peat done anything for anybody lately? No. Nobody, and nothing, that is willing to associate with peat, gets anything back, but hunger, weakness, and a promise of more of the same, as long as peat is anywhere around.

So, i'm not really buying, that peat, who apparently has done damned near nothing for anybody, but poison the environment through acidification,

needs a break.

Peat needs to be wiped off the face of the earth, so room can be made for more earthworms, and composting.

Because peat, is anti-environment. Peat, is death on rhyzomes, and peat, is an international poisoner, of over a billion acres of otherwise perfectly good fresh water, and an antagonist to almost every species of animal or plant that meets it.

Not even earthworms can live in it. Now what does THAT say....

I think peat, is an international, environmental pirate, who only thinks about itself. I at least, compost.

Wherever you find peat, the law peat lays down, is that even daring to live is illegal. Now you're going to try to tell all of us, that peat is the 'victim' here?

Screw you, peat is a ravager of wetlands, piling up and piling up, until only peat, can live there; hardly anybody else.

man is trying to find ways to limit greenhouse gasses. Peat is expanding it's greenhouse gas output.

And if yo try to tell me that and i don't feel like even debating it because either way peat loses that arguement, i will give you a hint and remind you of this, one last time:

Peat, is so anti environmental, that even earthworms cant live there.

i'm pretty sure, that mankind is far, FAR more environmentally concious than that, so i think that even your motiVAtions are probably more wrapped up in some ''feel - good feeling bad about being me" obsession,

than any objective look at the 'facts you so plaintively beg for me to look at, and "stop denying."

I think you, and your cadre of pro peat gurus, need to ask yourself just what it is YOU are denying, when you find yourself on the side of something that won't even let an EARTHworm get a fuckin break.

Cause like i said, personally, i'm pulling for earthworms, and thousands of other life forms, that can exist under TRUE eco-environmental DIVERSITY.

And peat can go suck a tractor tire. Cause it sounds to me, like the more you get to know peat,

the more you get to know a true enviromental pillaging pirate.

you know nothing of environmentalism and biodiversity if you try to tell me that just because peat is there, it must be good. Some things are absolute destroyers of every life form that comes near it, like nuclear radiation, and mercury, and cadmium.

Like red algae, and capitalist republicans who respect nobody but themselves.

At least red algae and capitalist republicans can manage to thrive. Sphagnum cant apparently do that;


seems like just as soon as you let peat get a foothold, everybody else takes a fuckin hike.
It sounds to me, like sphagnum moss, which somehow got a death grip, on entire regions of various continents, and destroyed ecological diversity with devastating impact,

has met Mr Greenjeans.

and we're gonna set the tundra free, the way it ought to be.

Ecologically diverse, with freedom for somebody to live besides just peat and it's crony, sphagnum moss.

You have absolutly no idea what you are talking about. Educate yourself, then feel free to chirp in.

 

[beancounter]

Can you re-use peat? NOPE!

Can you re-use coco? YEP!

After a few uses of coco you make your money's worth and after that you save compared to peat. It's that simple. Peat you cannot reuse.

I've reused peat with no problems.. You see that bud in my avatar? Grown in reused peat.

And, I know that coco is reusable, but I have yet to see a single one of the many, many coco growers I know and have seen even bother..

The time it takes to clean the roots outa and rinse the nutes/salt build up out the coco adds even more cost..

Ok, lets, for sake of argument, say it is impossible to reuse peat.. And we'll use the manufacturers recomendations for reusing coco, 3 times..

That compressed bale of Peat I buy for 6.99 starts at 107 litres, but once it has been uncompressed it's at least twice as much if not more, so lets round it down to 200 litres of usable medium for $7.

The coco bricks for $3.50 I can get expand to 8-9 litres of usable medium, lets round up to 10 to give coco an even bigger edge. So, for $7 I get 20 litres of fresh, brand new medium. Multiply that by 3 uses and you get 60 litres of coco for $7, not including at least an hr or more of work to clean the coco twice.. I get $30 CDN an hr at work, but to give coco an edge I'll go by minimum wage, $8 CDN.. So in reality it costs more like $15 for 60 litres of coco..

hmmmmm, is it even close in price? You don't need to be a genius to see that COCO is at LEAST 3 TIMES MORE EXPENSIVE, but actualy more like 4-5 times more expensive.

I know you can get the coco a lil cheaper than that at some places, but COCO is still never gonna be less than 3 TIMEs MORE EXPENSIVE THAN PEAT.


That's just not a comparable medium IMHO.. Sure, if coco was 3-5 times better maybe it would be worth it, but it's NOT.

So, I'm all for saving the enviroment, but not at 3 times the cost.

Show me a single person that would use electric cars if they cost 3-5 times as much money to run..

And this is going off the 'fact' that peat is not supposed to be reusable, although I have personaly reused it many times with no problems.

I'm just trying to look at all the pros and cons, and the pros for coco don't outweigh the cons for peat.

 

[Verite]

Stop Pete explotation.

 

[bartender187]

You have absolutly no idea what you are talking about. Educate yourself, then feel free to chirp in.

Thanks for takin the words out of my mouth : )

GH you are looking at a peat bog for its utility value....

ide like to quote sand county alamac..

"It entails that man knows just what makes the enivoromental clock tick, what is beneficial and what is useless, and as turns out, as it always does, that man knows neither."

 

[Guest]

I've reused peat with no problems.. You see that bud in my avatar? Grown in reused peat.

And, I know that coco is reusable, but I have yet to see a single one of the many, many coco growers I know and have seen even bother..

The time it takes to clean the roots outa and rinse the nutes/salt build up out the coco adds even more cost..

Ok, lets, for sake of argument, say it is impossible to reuse peat.. And we'll use the manufacturers recomendations for reusing coco, 3 times..

That compressed bale of Peat I buy for 6.99 starts at 107 litres, but once it has been uncompressed it's at least twice as much if not more, so lets round it down to 200 litres of usable medium for $7.

The coco bricks for $3.50 I can get expand to 8-9 litres of usable medium, lets round up to 10 to give coco an even bigger edge. So, for $7 I get 20 litres of fresh, brand new medium. Multiply that by 3 uses and you get 60 litres of coco for $7, not including at least an hr or more of work to clean the coco twice.. I get $30 CDN an hr at work, but to give coco an edge I'll go by minimum wage, $8 CDN.. So in reality it costs more like $15 for 60 litres of coco..

hmmmmm, is it even close in price? You don't need to be a genius to see that COCO is at LEAST 3 TIMES MORE EXPENSIVE, but actualy more like 4-5 times more expensive.

I know you can get the coco a lil cheaper than that at some places, but COCO is still never gonna be less than 3 TIMEs MORE EXPENSIVE THAN PEAT.


That's just not a comparable medium IMHO.. Sure, if coco was 3-5 times better maybe it would be worth it, but it's NOT.

So, I'm all for saving the enviroment, but not at 3 times the cost.

Show me a single person that would use electric cars if they cost 3-5 times as much money to run..

And this is going off the 'fact' that peat is not supposed to be reusable, although I have personaly reused it many times with no problems.

I'm just trying to look at all the pros and cons, and the pros for coco don't outweigh the cons for peat.

Peat rinses out with each watering, eventually degrading its quality every single time

Coco can be used over and over and over and over and over etc etc - many more times than 3. They use the same coco for YEARS for growing roses. It can be done, and is done.

There is no "salt buildup" to be worried about in coco after using it. If you overfertilized, you flush or rinse it.

It is not hard to get roots out of coco, at all.

It's unfortunate that you're letting your laziness get to you at the expense of our environment.

Coco costs roughly 5x the cost of peat.

You can re use coco many more times than 5

Break even at 5
Keep reusing, and save money
While not hurting the environment

I guess when you're a lazy ass it's not possible to do that, though, and you have to stick with shitty peat moss that degrades over time, robs soil of nitrogen by decomposing, and has horrible water saturation when dry along with an acidic pH. And it destroys the environment to mine it.

 

[beancounter]

Peat rinses out with each watering, eventually degrading its quality every single time

Coco can be used over and over and over and over and over etc etc - many more times than 3. They use the same coco for YEARS for growing roses. It can be done, and is done.

There is no "salt buildup" to be worried about in coco after using it. If you overfertilized, you flush or rinse it.

It is not hard to get roots out of coco, at all.

Ok, if it's so easy to reuse coco then why do so few people do it? And at least 1/2 of the people I see use coco don't even know it's reusable.

I've cleaned and reused coco myself, it's not just a matter of rinsing it out. You have to sift thru it removing little scraps of roots and if you miss some you risk root rot and other issues.. It's not a difficult thing to do, it just takes time.. And even if my time was only worth minimum wage it would almost double the cost of the coco.. So in reality it would be just as cheap to just go and buy some new stuff.

No matter how you look at it, coco is way more expensive, and MUCH harder to find.. Not everyone can just go and buy coco at Lowes or HD, so maybe they'll order it online and have to pay shipping costs..

And coco can hold salts.. Some coco bricks have a notoriously high salt content, and can not be used effectively without rinsing the product over and over again. I've seen and experienced this myself..

When coco costs $6.99 for 100 litres I'll be the 1st one picking some up, but until then I'll be sticking to the easier/cheaper alternative.

It doesn't matter if coco is reusable as far as cost is concerned, as each time you clean it for reuse it costs you more and more.. So even if you can reuse it 100 times you still have to clean the stuff 100 times.

And btw, coco does break down after a few uses.. The fibers break down into smaller fragments and it looses it's consistency and water retention properties..

Please, prove me wrong, show me someone that has reused coco more than 3 times, heck, show me someone who has used it more than 2. Oh, and show me someone who is doing it with MARIJUANA, I don't grow roses.

 

[beancounter]

And lets not forget about all the water wasted when cleaning and expanding coco, and IME coco needs more watering than peat thru the plant's life cycle..

So, you could make an argument to boycott coco to save the lakes/rivers lol

 

[Tokin White Guy]

you guys have fun with that I'll be concerning myself with more important issues such as the genocide occuring in Sudan, the imposing energy crisis and the fact that NUCLEAR power is the answer, at least to the worlds electricity needs, making Iraq self-sufficient, and hoping the Iranians and North Koreans don't try anything nasty with their new toys, and the legalization of marijuana

 

[Guest]

You don't need WATER to clean the freaking coco, man. Water does not help rinsing roots out of coco any better than shaking and picking it apart w/ your hands.

Tokin White Guy - it IS possible to use things other than peat while also worrying about "more important issues" at the same time.

We are humans - we are able to do many things concurrently - amazing, isn't it?

So you can change your ways, start not using peat, and keep all of your issues in mind.

 

[Guest]

Ok, if it's so easy to reuse coco then why do so few people do it? And at least 1/2 of the people I see use coco don't even know it's reusable.

I've cleaned and reused coco myself, it's not just a matter of rinsing it out. You have to sift thru it removing little scraps of roots and if you miss some you risk root rot and other issues.. It's not a difficult thing to do, it just takes time.. And even if my time was only worth minimum wage it would almost double the cost of the coco.. So in reality it would be just as cheap to just go and buy some new stuff.

No matter how you look at it, coco is way more expensive, and MUCH harder to find.. Not everyone can just go and buy coco at Lowes or HD, so maybe they'll order it online and have to pay shipping costs..

And coco can hold salts.. Some coco bricks have a notoriously high salt content, and can not be used effectively without rinsing the product over and over again. I've seen and experienced this myself..

When coco costs $6.99 for 100 litres I'll be the 1st one picking some up, but until then I'll be sticking to the easier/cheaper alternative.

It doesn't matter if coco is reusable as far as cost is concerned, as each time you clean it for reuse it costs you more and more.. So even if you can reuse it 100 times you still have to clean the stuff 100 times.

And btw, coco does break down after a few uses.. The fibers break down into smaller fragments and it looses it's consistency and water retention properties..

Please, prove me wrong, show me someone that has reused coco more than 3 times, heck, show me someone who has used it more than 2. Oh, and show me someone who is doing it with MARIJUANA, I don't grow roses.

Fact is that you can re use coco many many times, and it DOES NOT HURT THE ENVIRONMENT.

If you are THAT CMEMORY that you can't afford coco, and you can't re use it because you're lazy, then that's unfortunate.

Don't be so freakin selfish as to destroy the environment because you are cheap and lazy. It's that simple.

Unfortunatly, it seems like you do not have the balls to give up peat

 

[Seymour Duncan]

Stop Pete explotation.

........hmmm..... dont really get it but ok..

......This peat issue seems quite easy, cant we all just substitute? Peat was the last environmental concern on my list, and I hardly have used peat, i have no problem avoiding peat, thx for the heads up for our environment i guess?

 

[Guest]

I guess the utility of your cause, is single fold: keep peat, poisoning the tundras, to save a tiny quantity of subsystems that have managed to grab a foothold in that wasteland

Peat IS NATURALLY there. It is MEANT to be there. It is part of the global food chain. It serves a TASK. It houses an ecosystem.

You distributing it will only HURT the human species EVEN MORE because you are DISRUPTING THE ECOSYSTEM. Once you break a link in the chain, the whole web is compromised. This is what you want to do by mining peat moss.

taking that acid based humic substance from where it's concentrated into a death potion for almost everything, and spread it around on alkalai soils in order to allow species THERE to get a better foothold, (thus simultaneously increasing biodiversity in not one but TWO systems

No no see this is where you are wrong - it is not a human's job to go around spreading peat to try to make all soils more acidic. Why? Because you would disrupt even more ecosystems. Nature makes itself sustainable. Humans spreading peat around all basic soils is not smart because those soils are basic for a reason, and plants in those regions have adapted specifically to those soils. To do what you want to do would be destroying all of the plants that have adapted to these soils.

and, come out with some sugary and dank nuggets, which were the species i was fighting the d.e.a. to be able to proliforate.

You can do this without destroying the environment by avoiding peat.

are a bunch of fanatics denying the facts about beneficial ecological substances and species, in order to further their own deluded fantasy that only "they, the enlightened ones," can see the sense of their mismanagement ideas.

The only goal of this thread is to protect the environment.
Peat is non renewable and removing peat bogs hurts the environment.

You have absolutly NOTHING of value to negate all of the *scientific* (not just from the peat miner) info I have put up here

It seems like you don't have the balls to give up peat, either. You'd rather stick with something that destroys the environment and is horticulturally inferior to peat moss, because you are not willing to put in a little extra effort.

 

[beancounter]

You don't need WATER to clean the freaking coco, man. Water does not help rinsing roots out of coco any better than shaking and picking it apart w/ your hands.

Strange.. Every FAQ I've seen on reusing coco has recommended rinsing the coco a few times with water after picking out the roots by hand and prior to actualy reusing it.. I've also seen the exact same recomendations by the companies that make the coco, and from hydro store employees..

But if you say so it must be true.

Fact is that you can re use coco many many times, and it DOES NOT HURT THE ENVIRONMENT.

I thought you could reuse it forever?

If you are THAT CMEMORY that you can't afford coco, and you can't re use it because you're lazy, then that's unfortunate.

It's not about being 'THAT CMEMORY' as you so eloquently put it.. It's about being smart with my money..

And the cleaning or not cleaning coco has nothing to do with lazyness.. In case you didn't read it, I said I do reuse my coco, or else I wouldn't know how long it takes.. I will continue to reuse the coco I already have..

I'm just not prepared nor do I even have the time in my life to reuse 100-200 litres of it.

Don't be so freakin selfish as to destroy the environment because you are cheap and lazy. It's that simple.

simple answers for simple minds it seems.. If calling me selfish and using insulting words like 'cheap' and 'lazy' makes you feel better, then fire away.. I thought we were having an intelligent discussion about the pros and the cons of peat and peat replacements..

Unfortunatly, it seems like you do not have the balls to give up peat

I guess not, actualy, I just traded my nuts for another bale of peat.

I would continue this debate and discussion with you, but it seams you'd rather insult people you don't agree with, so have fun with your boycott.

 

[Guest]

Obviously you cannot use coco forever, I don't think I ever even said that. You can use it for a very long time though, that's for sure. Long enough to break even and save money by not using peat.

I meant you don't have to rinse coco to get roots out. Even after that, there is no reason to rinse off used coco, unless you have overfertilied.

If you are truly selfish enough to place a couple bucks saved in your pocket over the environment, then go right ahead. If you would rather use an inferior soil amendment, go right ahead. Just know I'll respect you less for it (for damaging the environment, that is. I could give a shit less if you wanna go bad plants by using old, inferior, haggard, peat moss )

What this allllll boils down to is that you are too lazy to reuse coco and would rather damage the environment, and that you'd rather hurt the environment permenantly just to save a few bucks in the short term (long term, coco beats out peat in terms of money). That is pathetic to me, and it will be part of the downfall of our human species.

 

[beancounter]

I couldn't resist posting one more time..

"just a 'few', just a 'couple' dollars"... lol

To get about 214 litres of coco right away, the cost would be about $85..

To get the same amount of peat the cost would be $7..

looks like more than a couple (2), or a few (3) dollars to me.

The 'reusable' nature of the coco does NOT add any additional value for most people.. Like I've already said, it costs just as much $ in time to prepare the coco for reuse as a brand new brick or bag costs. It's probably even cheaper just to buy new, so to me the 'reusable' factor adds NO value to coco as a medium. So I totaly disagree, coco is WAY more expensive, no matter how many times you reuse it.

Before calling my plants bad or inferior, why don't you have a peek at my gallery? I've tried coco right next to peat, and noticed no improved performance with the coco, just that I needed to water more.. Have you done the same? If not I suggest you do a little research for yourself before making such comments.



It also seams to me that peat is a very renewable resource, like you said it grows at 1mm a year, which is a whole lot of new peat every year.. Maybe you meant it's not renewable at the rate at which it's being mined, but that's certainly not that same.. If you're gonna stand up loud and proud about boycotting peat try to give people accurate info..

And honestly, I don't believe the experts you quoted any more or any less than the ones GH quoted.. It's proven in history that both sides can be just as wrong, no matter who is percieved as 'unbiased'..

I just found a quote via google:

~Peat is renewable and in terms of its accumulation, peat in Canada is growing more than 70 times as fast as it is being harvested. [According to an issue paper entitled "Canadian Peat Harvesting and the Environment," published by the North American Wetlands Conservation Council (Canada)]

doesn't look like a Peat company to me

That is the reason I only buy, and I will only EVER buy Canadian Peat Moss.. Maybe if the only choice for buying peat was from countries that didn't follow the standards they do in Canada I would go to some other product like coco... But luckily, thanks to Canada's vast bogs and sustainable harvesting I don't need to spend up to 12 times as much on coco.

You are fighting for a good cause, I don't want to see animals and plants go extinct either.. But you are presenting one sided info and lumping all of the peat industries all together, and the issue just isn't that simple.

With your rational we should all boycot wood aswell, because there are some places in the world using improper clear-cutting and destroying ecosytems.. That must mean that all logging everywhere is bad and we should build our houses with bricks instead.. And all people who continue living is houses made with wood are just lazy and cheap, because the bricks are only 12 times more expensive, and take WAY more time/work to build with.

 

[beancounter]

Ok, maybe 2 more times... lol

Here's a couple pages of info C & Ped so we can see all sides of the story.. No matter what the source of the info I find that we always benefit from hearing/reading both sides.

~There are some people who are misinformed about the harvesting of peat moss. The CSPMA is committed to providing accurate information to the public on harvesting and environmental issues.

One common misconceived notion is that peat is "over harvested" and that "prices will inevitably rise". Statement's like this are incorrect. Peat moss is not being over-harvested and prices are lower today than they have been in the past 10 years. Here are some important facts to set the record straight:

Harvest Issues

There are more than 270,000,000 acres, 25% of the world's supply, of which our industry harvests on less than 40,000 acres, or one acre in 6,000.

Peat is renewable and in terms of its accumulation, peat in Canada is growing more than 70 times as fast as it is being harvested. [According to an issue paper entitled "Canadian Peat Harvesting and the Environment," published by the North American Wetlands Conservation Council (Canada)]

As well, we know that under the right circumstances, sphagnum moss will re-establish itself on a harvested bog. Soon thereafter, from this collection of mosses, peat will accumulate, re-establishing a layer of peat that will continue to grow.

Because a single bog can be harvested for between 15 and 50 years before they are left for restoration, harvesting has been completed on less than 3,000 acres. There are good examples of harvested bogs in Canada where more than one foot of sphagnum moss has re-grown, unaided, during the 10 to 15 years since harvesting has ceased. These bogs look like and provide the functions of virgin bogs.

Even though Canada does not have peat supply concerns, the industry is looking for ways to accelerate peat bog regeneration. Until recently, peat bogs have been left to regenerate, a process that can take up to 20 years. New research in ways to restore bogs quickly, indicates that time can be shortened to five to eight years.

The research projects, in which the industry has invested $1 million, include transplanting live sphagnum plants, seeding spores of sphagnum taken from live plants, and covering the harvested bog with the top spit from a living bog. This research is complete now and the results are excellent. From the techniques developed through the research, the research team, in cooperation with our Association, has produced a restoration instruction manual entitled Peatland Restoration Guide.

It will take hundreds of years to replace all the peat that was removed, but even while it's growing we will have is a peatland that resumes the most important functions of a bog:

* filtering water,
* acting as a water collection basin,
* accumulating carbon, and
* providing habitat for flora and fauna.


The one function we cannot replace is a virgin bog that stores geo-paleantological history. For that reason, it is important to identify bogs for conservation in all areas of Canada.

Peatlands will regenerate themselves and it is the policy of the Canadian peat industry, and supported by government, to ensure peat is a sustainable resource. The Canadian peat producers have adopted a strict Preservation and Reclamation Policy that calls for, among other things:

* identifying bogs for preservation through environmental assessment;
* using careful harvesting techniques so that restoration can be readily achieved;
* leaving at least three feet of peat at the bottom of the bog; and
* returning of harvested bogs to functioning wetlands.

There should be no concern with continuing to use peat moss as the base of growing media in North America. The resource is huge, the amount of extraction small by comparison and the industry and government are committed to sustainable development.

Price

With respect to pricing issues, the industry is very competitive and good supply is readily available. The current price gives the customer excellent value for the money.

Should you have any other questions regarding Canadian sphagnum peat moss and the environment, we invite you to e-mail us for a prompt reply.

http://www.peatmoss.com/concern.php



~Peat moss

In Britain and parts of Europe, overuse of peat moss by gardeners and others has led to environmental concerns as bogs are depleted, and gardeners are now encouraged not to use peat moss.


Restored Canadian bog harvested until 1968
Sphagnum peat moss is an alternative. Gardeners say American sphagnum moss is too tough and stringy. Use sphagnum peat moss from Canada. Don't use sphagnum moss, which is the fresh plant: sphagnum peat moss is partly decomposed and is the correct product for gardening and potting soils.

Canadian sphagnum peat moss is not a threatened resource.

http://journeytoforever.org/compost_peatmoss.html




There are more, but most of it's similar.. I googled a bunch of different combos of words and couldn't find anything negative about the Canadian peat moss harvesting.. The only thing I saw that was negative was in an add for coco.. lol And it was only negative about peat moss in Europe.

Show me some proof that Canada's peat bogs are depleted or even being depleted at an unsustainable rate and I'll stop using it.. until then I'll trust the North American Wetlands Conservation Council over the odd member online posting the same rhetoric that peat competitors put out there.