Ahh, spring and people burning brush.....Hey, wait!







It's finally spring out west! And neighbors are already trimming their trees and bushes - and burning the clippings. Argh!

On my way home from work, I drove past a home just long enough for my car to fill up with smoke from them burning brush. I was starting a cold, so my lungs were already cranky. By the time I got home a short 5 minutes later, I was in desperate need of my inhaler.

I love spring - but not when neighbors trim their yard and burn the brush.

When my kids were in elementary school, a big problem was a neighbor who had a small orchard right next to the school. He trimmed all of his trees and decided to burn the tree limbs - during lunch recess - when 500 kids were outside playing. The entire playground was full of smoke.

I was NOT happy.

Since my kids were hospitalized a LOT when they were little, I was always trying to protect their little lungs. So, I marched over to the school to talk to the principal. 

It wasn't just my kids I was worried about. Its ALL the kids in the school with asthma. 1 in 12 kids have asthma, which means 2-3 kids per class, depending on the size. Times that by Kindergarten through 6th grade, and that's a lot of kids in one elementary school with asthma. 

I wanted to protect all of the kids from the fire and smoke. School is out at 3:00, why can't the neighbor wait until then to burn the tree limbs? Smoke has been known to hospitalize kids with asthma (really - my son ended up in ICU from smoke) so fires and smoke me nervous. 

From what I remember, they had me call the Fire Marshall and work out details with him to keep the neighbor from starting a fire and filling the playing with smoke.

Is there another way to get rid of tree branches and bushes? 

We have a lot of trees in our yard - 8 full grown trees, plus lots of bushes and a wisteria vine that grows up our pergola. So when my husbands trims the yard, he ends up with a truck full of branches and clippings.
 
Do we burn them? No!
 
The Hubby loads up the branches and trimmings and drives to the landfill at the edge of town. Our town has a green waste at the landfill, and they use a chipper there to grind up the branches and make mulch. Our town also has green waste garbage cans that we can fill up each week with tree limbs, ivy clippings, grass clippings, etc.
 
All of that goes to the green waste at the landfill, where they combine it into mulch. Then the neighbors head to the landfill to get mulch for their gardens. Win win! Recycling at it's finest!
 
We aren't filling the neighborhood with smoke, we are getting rid of the green waste, and it's being recycled for other neighbors to use in their gardens.  

And most of all, we are protecting our lungs.

Anyone else have a tough time with neighbors burning tree limbs or leaves?

Comments

  1. It was a problem when hurricane Ike hit in 2008. More of the destruction was from high wind speeds and not flooding like harvey. Power lines were down and I was out of electricity for a month. Anyways because the storm had 75 mph wind on land there was a lot of tree limbs among the rubble and when everyone was cleaning their yard some people burnt the branches. The smoke was all throughout the town. Some people took their yard waste to the curb and a special garbage truck took the plant based waste.

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    1. Oh wow, that must have been awful for you! And scary when the whole town smells like smoke. That sounds as bad as a forest fire. Smoke always scares me since my son ended up in ICU after breathing in smoke from a forest fire. The smoke had covered our valley and there was no escaping it.

      I don't mind the extra work of putting our yard waste in a green waste can or taking it to the green waste section of the landfill. It's safer for everyone's lungs!

      I hope you are well!

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  2. Yes. I recently suffered a severe asthma attack (first one in quite a few years) Nine days later, and first day my chest didn't feel tight, a farmer set part of his field afire. The smoke inundated the neighborhood where I work. Each time the revolving doors opened, the smoke poured in. Soot was dropping from the sky. I had to wear a mask that day.

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    1. That's really scary. I'm so glad you had a mask to protect yourself! I don't think farmers have ANY idea how it affects us.

      When my son ended up in ICU from the smoke from a forest fire, I really wanted the people who set the forest fire to pay for our hospital visit and time off work. They have no idea how we are affected by fire and smoke!

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