plaster and plasterboard disposal?

[Fred]

Hi,

When I was reading-up on how to plaster, I found some government web site that said plasterboard should not be land filled and should be kept separate from other waste. What's so terrible about plasterboard that it needs to be handled separately?

Does this only apply to builders and tradesmen using commercial quantities or does it also apply to the public? Will I get arrested for putting an off cut in my wheelie bin?!

Can I also ask, how do you dispose of the washout from when you have cleaned your bucket, hawk, trowel, etc? We've recently had a blocked drain so I was concerned that if I poured it away, it might block the drain. I think I read a thread here where someone wanted to pour plaster on his garden to improve the soil. Do you throw your slurry on the flowerbed? When we had a professional plasterer, I am sure I remember him washing his tools in the street but don't remember him having much mess. Perhaps that's the difference between a DIY beginner and a pro?

TIA

[mark]

When I went to my local tip with among other things about two sq. ft of plaster board, I was stopped. Had to put it in a special skip and was given a receipt. didn't charge me anything but I thought it was all getting a bit silly.

Apparently it goes back to British Gypsum to be ground up and re-used.

mark

[Phil L]

you can put it in a skip, wheely bin or any such similar receptical. If you take it to the local dump, they have seperate skips for gypsum, hard core, metal, wood, batteries, tyres etc and this is so they can get their recycling quotas up. If you have lots of bagged rubbish with mixed stuff in you just lob it into the non recyclable waste skip and everyone's happy

solids go in bin, liquid on the garden, it's gypsum, IE school chalk, it does no harm to plants etc, is non toxic and washes into soil harmlessly, if you pour it down the drain though, it sets in the bottom of the trap

[NT]

the garden's fine.

NT

[The Natural Philosopher]

Until you pour brick acid on it, that is.

[andrew]

Fred wrote: What's so terrible about plasterboard

Apparently when dumped in lanfilf gypsum ( calcium sulphate) products decompose with any vegetable matter and produce hydrogen sulphide. Apart from being poisonous H2S reacts with ironwork and if the biogas being produced by the landfill is being vented via a flare or power generation equipment it reduces the life of the plant. I remeber the large landfill gas generators at Redhill suffered badly from sulphurous acid attacking the exhausts.

AJH

[Spamlet]

Hmm: interesting. The brick pits through Mid Beds, have clay which includes both pyrites and gypsum. Even though when one collects the pyrites it often starts to break down, producing sulphuric acid, i.e. once it is exposed to the air. Therefore, anaerobically (in landfill), I would have thought the tendency was for these materials to be *produced*: not broken down: acid reacts with animal shells and bones to produce phosphates and sulphates. But chemistry is full of surprises...

S

[Fred]

I sometimes wonder whether the good of me going to the tip and recycling my rubbish is outweighed by the bad of the diesel burnt on the twenty mile return journey there and back.

We had a newsletter saying there was now a plasterboard skip but it was locked and hidden. I had to ask where it was and then sign a form with my name, address, postcode, colour of my car, make of my car, model of my car, registration number. There is less security at an airport!

No wonder I spotted someone with a car-load of plasterboard discretely putting it in the non-recyclable skip!

Is anything added to it to make the different types of plaster, or is that simply due to particle size?

If you have already got clay soil, will it make things even worse?!

[Chris J Dixon]

It is clay soil that benefits from gypsum.

Chris

[Andrew Gabriel]

Finish coat is finest. Browning is I think just a courser version, but apparently hardly anyone uses it nowadays (I never have). Bonding is courser but also mixed with vermiculite and probably other things to bulk it out, and a bonding agent (probably PVA).

I don't think any of them are harmful in the garden. Certainly my plants seem to have been at best indifferent, and possibly even enthusiastic about the plaster dumped on them. Grass seems to grow on a pile of pure plaster after a while.

It's used to treat clay soils to make them better (drainage, I think).

[Fred]

Thanks. Very interesting. The garden it is then!