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Ecological Rules For Summer Cottages. Part 1
Ecological Rules For Summer Cottages. Part 1

Video: Ecological Rules For Summer Cottages. Part 1

Video: Ecological Rules For Summer Cottages. Part 1
Video: Ecological Rules- Part 1 2024, March
Anonim

Don't live one day …

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I was prompted to write this article by the irresponsible attitude of many gardeners and summer residents to their environment. In spring and autumn, and quite often in summer, the wind carries an unpleasant, poisonous smell of garbage burnt in areas - plastic bottles, old film, car tires.

The mountains of garbage are also upsetting, which some throw away near the sites or from the windows of cars on the way to the city.

I wanted to convey to the consciousness of all vacationers and those working in nature information about the dangers of such actions, first of all, for themselves, as well as about the dangers to nature.

Perhaps, after reading this article, they will think at least about their health and the health of their children and grandchildren. I will try to explain how the different types of waste we throw away affect the soil, air, water and people themselves.

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Soil contamination

Our soil is a sorbent that absorbs everything that is formed as a result of human activity. It is home to microorganisms, lower animals, fungal spores, which recycle organic waste - food waste, wood. Thanks to these helpers, organic substances entering the soil are mineralized, that is, they are processed and form nutrients available to plants. They are the orderlies of the soil. That is why throwing organic garbage (food waste, hay, grass, etc.) behind the fence - so useful for the soil of a garden plot - is simply a crime.

I often see how some neighbors carry trolleys to the outskirts of our village with fallen unripe apples, weeds, dry leaves and other organic waste. And this is instead of sending it to the compost heap to obtain the most valuable organic fertilizer there, which would help increase the soil fertility on the site and increase the yield of garden and vegetable crops.

In addition, when organic waste decays, carbon dioxide is formed, which plants need very much for the process of photosynthesis. This is why plants thrive on compost heaps and produce a rich crop.

Plant debris thrown away near gardeners' sites creates unsanitary conditions that attract rats, mice, flies, snails, slugs, ants, fleas, woodworms, fruit flies, fungus spores and worm eggs develop there. Most of these pests are also carriers of diseases - dysentery, typhoid, cholera, tuberculosis, salmonellosis, leptospirosis, tularemia, jaundice, hepatitis.

For example, discarded plant waste near summer cottages attracts such a pest that has rapidly multiplied in recent years as a grape snail. First, it feeds on this waste, and then crawls to our garden plots for more delicious food - a ripening crop, causing serious damage to it. In addition, snails find a suitable breeding ground among wet beds and bushes. It is worth noting that they are hermaphrodites (bisexual), and each snail simultaneously plays the role of a male and a female.

During the warm season, one adult individual of the grape snail is able to make not one, but several clutches, in each of which it lays up to 40 eggs. In addition to eating our harvest, grape snails are also harmful because they are carriers of helminths. Therefore, it is not worth attracting them with the discarded plant waste, but, on the contrary, destroying them. I was convinced in practice that the most effective way to fight is to collect grape snails in a jar of salt water, where they die.

It is estimated that in St. Petersburg and its suburbs there are approximately 200-400 kg of solid household waste per inhabitant per year. And if in cities the problem of garbage disposal is solved, then in the suburbs, where more than half of the townspeople rush in summer, citizens themselves solve the garbage problem, as a rule, not in favor of nature. Garbage is left behind by gardeners in unauthorized garbage dumps and often thrown out of car windows on the way home.

And this is often not harmless rubbish. It contains objects and materials that are very harmful to nature and people: cans, batteries, various packaging materials, linoleum, plastic, detergents and their containers, old household appliances, etc. Tin cans, being in the soil for a long time, rust, as a result of which a new substance, alien to the soil, is formed.

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The most dangerous are alkaline batteries, batteries, which, according to the rules, must be taken out and disposed of separately from the main waste, since they contain toxic elements and heavy metals: zinc, manganese, lead, cadmium, etc.

Alkaline batteries are a very dangerous soil contaminant. For example, a single alkaline battery can poison 20 m² of soil by contaminating it with heavy metals, and it can also poison 400 liters of water. The metal coating of the battery collapses while lying in the landfill, and the heavy metals that make up it first enter the soil, into the water in the soil, and then seep into the ground water, falling into our wells.

After all, water in the soil moves both vertically and horizontally. Therefore, such a carcinogenic solution can easily migrate to any garden area. Since heavy metals are in a dissolved state, they are consumed by plants, which will then be eaten by gardeners. As a result, heavy metals, having reached a certain concentration in the human body, cause toxic poisoning, cancer, and various mutations.

Old household appliances thrown into a landfill are a time bomb, and if there is a lot of it, then, perhaps, a quick action. Old TV sets are especially dangerous, first of all, their CRTs, which contain heavy metals that can poison soil, water and air.

Plastic, polyethylene, glass do not decompose in soil for hundreds of years. For example, the decomposition of paper takes 2 to 10 years, a tin can - 90 years, a cigarette filter - 100 years, a plastic bag - 200 years, plastic - 500 years, glass - 1000 years! Pieces of plastic bags take the mice into their nests and use them as mink insulation and bedding. Being in the soil, solid household waste is a foreign element that interferes with the growth of roots of plants and trees. In addition, such waste makes the natural landscape around us unattractive. Who likes to observe the mountains of garbage behind their site?

Is it possible to treat household waste differently. It turns out you can. Having visited a sanatorium in Belarus a year ago, I visited a neighboring city. And I was pleasantly amazed by the attitude of the local population towards household waste. It is very strictly sorted by type: plastic in one container, glass in another, and the rest of household waste in the third. And the sorting rules are strictly followed. Apparently, people were accustomed to this: for their non-observance, violators are strictly asked. And on the sides of highways there are special resting places with benches, rain fungus and a trash can. By the way, it seems to be regularly collected because the trash cans are not overcrowded.

I also liked the funny beautiful homemade products that the locals make from plastic bottles - these are flowers, animals, fairy-tale characters. They make beautiful birds from old car tires. And they are installed on flower beds and lawns near the entrances of residential buildings or in garden plots. As they say, both cheap and beautiful!

I know that some Russian gardeners also skillfully use plastic bottles as drinkers for plants, covering, insulating material, as well as for decorative purposes. (Read another article in this issue about the use of plastic bottles in everyday life - ed.)

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After washing or washing dishes, some gardeners pour water with detergents dissolved in it into the garden or under trees and bushes. In addition to detergents, such solutions contain salts of inorganic acids (phosphates, carbonates), bleaching agents containing active chlorine, disinfectants, dyes, fragrances, surface active agents (surfactants).

All this "cocktail" not only has a harmful effect on the skin of the hands, but also kills not only the microflora and other beneficial inhabitants of the soil, but also the plants themselves. In addition, soil salinization occurs. For the same reason, cars should not be washed near the house, and especially near water bodies and wells. Detergent or dirt flowing from it will certainly fall into the reservoir and well!

I know that it is not recommended to add the contents of toilets - feces to the soil of the garden plot, especially if you add special chemicals for cesspools there. On the one hand, feces is a valuable organic fertilizer containing nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, but on the other hand, they contain helminths that remain in the soil, and then end up on your table with the harvest. And the worst thing is when uneducated gardeners, as a rule, take out the contents of the toilet in the fall, scattering it all over the garden or, for example, as some gardeners do in our dachas, in planting raspberries.

Firstly, a fetid odor appears in the entire district, which the neighbors are forced to breathe, and secondly, due to the abundant rainfall at this time of the year, the liquid components of feces seep first into the surface water, and then into the groundwater. Then they end up in neighboring wells and nearby water bodies. The proof of this is the flowering of reservoirs. And if chemicals for cesspools are added to the toilet, then they are also added to this list.

Read part 2. Environmental rules at summer cottages →

Olga Rubtsova, gardener, candidate of geographical sciences

Vsevolozhsky district of the Leningrad region

Photo by the author

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