Be mindful that if the wood is treated with chemicals, they can leech into the surrounding soil as the wood breaks down. I had a piece of CCA treated lumber on the edge of my garden bed and the adjacent soil was contaminated with arsenic quite heavily (I had it tested). I just dug a trough 8-12 inches out from where that board was and will need to replace the soil.
Sgt_carbonero
Creosote. Toxic. Cancerous. Remove if you want to eat your fruit.
Scary_Perspective572
sometimes free comes at a cost
FuzzyMatterhorN
I live in a nickle smelting city. University did a study to see if plants uptake the heavy medals etc. as there are many gardens in the shadow of the chimney. All good apparently. Just because something leeches into the ground doesn’t definitively mean the plants soak it up.
Confident-Virus-1273
I wouldn’t. There’s a lot of poisons in that wood.
Hyggelig-lurker
No. Don’t use those.
Flat_Milk_3464
Awful close to the fence
NotObviouslyARobot
Being able to mow around the trees will help you manage them. Scrap the border entirely. It does nothing
Annual_Judge_7272
Mulch mulch and keep mulching
austinteddy3
Get them gone NOW!
BrainFartTheFirst
Railroad ties are treated with creosote which protects the wood from the elements but really isn’t good for gardening.
zubaplants
Ehhh… Not the worst, but not great. I’m not big on the chemicals will kill you fanfare, but railroad ties are soaked in chemicals. Ornamental garden I wouldn’t recommend it, food garden probably won’t kill you, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to bring them onsite.
Cancer-causing creosote. Do not bring poison onto your property, especially near your fruit trees. Don’t burn it, saw it, breathe it, touch it. Don’t turn your property into a brownfield.
Key-Educator-3018
Wood soaked with creosote should not be used around anything you want to eat. It stays in all systems and poisons everything.
xmashatstand
**NO**
**POISON**
NoMSaboutit
These were so hard to get rid of! No disposal company would take them.
ImportantBiscotti112
Is this rage bait? 😂
Overall_Curve6725
Get rid of them. They are toxic
veryjudgely
Sorry. Not my cup of tea. Don’t the trees themselves make a border?
DaNullifidian
Repurposing! Outstanding…..just don’t do it with those foul oozing instruments of malignancy.
tlbs101
I keep hearing that they leach toxins (e.g. creosote, etc) into the soil, yet I have hundreds of square feet of raised beds that use railroad ties. They were here when we moved in to the house and were well established as productive beds. I have never had any problems with growing veggies in these beds — for years now.
That said, the beds were constructed in the early 1980s and my thought is that most/all of the toxins have leached out long ago. A few of the ties need replacing (rotted) and I plan on using something other than RR ties.
shruupienoops
I hear they make good backstops for shooting practice. Depending on where you’re at, someone may want to buy them. But yes, creosote.
I grew up very close to one location of company called Kerr McGee, which used creosote to treat railroad ties and telephone poles. Everyone within a certain radius got a check for like, $20k in a class action lawsuit back in 2006 or sometime around then.
3497723
Cancer. Get them out now.
Soflohooker
>!You finna die OP!<
ShivaSkunk777
You need to remove every single one of those and keep them very far away from absolutely everything. They’re poison. I’d get them off my property if I were you
MrArborsexual
This is a bad idea. Rail ties are treated with creosote.
Creosote is actually pretty amazing stuff. As far as long term wood preservatives go, it is way way way less harmful than any other alternative and it is more effective. It is in no way, shape or form a substance you would want to constantly expose yourself too, but simply being near or touching a creosote treated piece of lumber isn’t going to kill you. While creosote exposure, even consistent exposure over a decade, does have negative health effects, increased rate of death is not one of them (at least per a 2005 study on creosote workers).
That said, it doesn’t need to kill you to give you bad time. Coal derived creosote (what ties are treated with) comes with whatever was in that coal, which wasn’t just carbon. Long term exposure to any heavy metals from the creosote, or from your soil now made bioavailable due to creosote run off, or from the volatile aromatics coming off the ties, *can* have significant impacts on your health. Like not kill you necessarily, but make your life miserable. Stuff like increased light sensitivity, weird rashes that won’t go away, etc.
Different people have different sensitivities. So maybe you would never feel a single negative health effect, but this is an area where there is a known bear, that you can choose not to poke.
I know someone is going to bring up the studies where creosote gave rats cancer.
1. Humans aren’t rats. Studies like that aren’t a 1:1 thing.
2. The IARC had to continuously coat the shaved skin of the rats in the study to produce the cancer causing effects. I doubt OP is rubbing his balls on rail ties 3-times a day.
Irish8ryan
Bad idea. Even if you have to pay to get those gone, get them gone.
babiiesbreath
My dad used like 50 railroad ties as fencing around my childhood home that’s been there for 30 yrs and this is the place I find out they’re toxic. So many people , adults… babies… (including me) touching them and then probably putting their fingers in their mouths lol. Oh well
cghffbcx
That’s a lot of figs
Xpansionplan
lol, they used to use it (creosote – both types) in medicine, until they found it wasn’t such a good idea. Pretty much the same medical criteria as today 💉. But it’s not radioactive waste, just don’t lay naked in the sun on them! I did get chemical burns and photosensitivity from handling a truckload of them one sunny day in just shorts many years ago. Had to sit in a darkened room for a week as my skin pealed off. But they are still handy things used in the right place.
burnt_tung
Seems like the consensus is I should remove them. I’ll just throw them in the burn pile for my next burn!
32 Comments
Can contain canceras chemicals🤔
Be mindful that if the wood is treated with chemicals, they can leech into the surrounding soil as the wood breaks down. I had a piece of CCA treated lumber on the edge of my garden bed and the adjacent soil was contaminated with arsenic quite heavily (I had it tested). I just dug a trough 8-12 inches out from where that board was and will need to replace the soil.
Creosote. Toxic. Cancerous. Remove if you want to eat your fruit.
sometimes free comes at a cost
I live in a nickle smelting city. University did a study to see if plants uptake the heavy medals etc. as there are many gardens in the shadow of the chimney. All good apparently. Just because something leeches into the ground doesn’t definitively mean the plants soak it up.
I wouldn’t. There’s a lot of poisons in that wood.
No. Don’t use those.
Awful close to the fence
Being able to mow around the trees will help you manage them. Scrap the border entirely. It does nothing
Mulch mulch and keep mulching
Get them gone NOW!
Railroad ties are treated with creosote which protects the wood from the elements but really isn’t good for gardening.
Ehhh… Not the worst, but not great. I’m not big on the chemicals will kill you fanfare, but railroad ties are soaked in chemicals. Ornamental garden I wouldn’t recommend it, food garden probably won’t kill you, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to bring them onsite.
[https://www.des.nh.gov/news-and-media/blog/railroad-ties-and-creosote-treated-wood](https://www.des.nh.gov/news-and-media/blog/railroad-ties-and-creosote-treated-wood)
Cancer-causing creosote. Do not bring poison onto your property, especially near your fruit trees. Don’t burn it, saw it, breathe it, touch it. Don’t turn your property into a brownfield.
Wood soaked with creosote should not be used around anything you want to eat. It stays in all systems and poisons everything.
**NO**
**POISON**
These were so hard to get rid of! No disposal company would take them.
Is this rage bait? 😂
Get rid of them. They are toxic
Sorry. Not my cup of tea. Don’t the trees themselves make a border?
Repurposing! Outstanding…..just don’t do it with those foul oozing instruments of malignancy.
I keep hearing that they leach toxins (e.g. creosote, etc) into the soil, yet I have hundreds of square feet of raised beds that use railroad ties. They were here when we moved in to the house and were well established as productive beds. I have never had any problems with growing veggies in these beds — for years now.
That said, the beds were constructed in the early 1980s and my thought is that most/all of the toxins have leached out long ago. A few of the ties need replacing (rotted) and I plan on using something other than RR ties.
I hear they make good backstops for shooting practice. Depending on where you’re at, someone may want to buy them. But yes, creosote.
I grew up very close to one location of company called Kerr McGee, which used creosote to treat railroad ties and telephone poles. Everyone within a certain radius got a check for like, $20k in a class action lawsuit back in 2006 or sometime around then.
Cancer. Get them out now.
>!You finna die OP!<
You need to remove every single one of those and keep them very far away from absolutely everything. They’re poison. I’d get them off my property if I were you
This is a bad idea. Rail ties are treated with creosote.
Creosote is actually pretty amazing stuff. As far as long term wood preservatives go, it is way way way less harmful than any other alternative and it is more effective. It is in no way, shape or form a substance you would want to constantly expose yourself too, but simply being near or touching a creosote treated piece of lumber isn’t going to kill you. While creosote exposure, even consistent exposure over a decade, does have negative health effects, increased rate of death is not one of them (at least per a 2005 study on creosote workers).
That said, it doesn’t need to kill you to give you bad time. Coal derived creosote (what ties are treated with) comes with whatever was in that coal, which wasn’t just carbon. Long term exposure to any heavy metals from the creosote, or from your soil now made bioavailable due to creosote run off, or from the volatile aromatics coming off the ties, *can* have significant impacts on your health. Like not kill you necessarily, but make your life miserable. Stuff like increased light sensitivity, weird rashes that won’t go away, etc.
Different people have different sensitivities. So maybe you would never feel a single negative health effect, but this is an area where there is a known bear, that you can choose not to poke.
I know someone is going to bring up the studies where creosote gave rats cancer.
1. Humans aren’t rats. Studies like that aren’t a 1:1 thing.
2. The IARC had to continuously coat the shaved skin of the rats in the study to produce the cancer causing effects. I doubt OP is rubbing his balls on rail ties 3-times a day.
Bad idea. Even if you have to pay to get those gone, get them gone.
My dad used like 50 railroad ties as fencing around my childhood home that’s been there for 30 yrs and this is the place I find out they’re toxic. So many people , adults… babies… (including me) touching them and then probably putting their fingers in their mouths lol. Oh well
That’s a lot of figs
lol, they used to use it (creosote – both types) in medicine, until they found it wasn’t such a good idea. Pretty much the same medical criteria as today 💉. But it’s not radioactive waste, just don’t lay naked in the sun on them! I did get chemical burns and photosensitivity from handling a truckload of them one sunny day in just shorts many years ago. Had to sit in a darkened room for a week as my skin pealed off. But they are still handy things used in the right place.
Seems like the consensus is I should remove them. I’ll just throw them in the burn pile for my next burn!