How to Zap Garlic Mustard and Other Invasive Plants

Hey Mr. Green,

It is not fitting to speak poorly of one's neighbor, but to be very blunt, my neighbor Colonel Garlic Mustard is an invasive pest. I would like to know the most environmentally sensitive way to deal with him. It's so difficult for me to choose between the options that come to mind. Would you recommend a lead pipe or a wrench perhaps? I know you will appreciate how deeply concerned I am about minimizing my environmental footprint in this delicate matter. –-Dan, in Madison, Wisconsin

Invasive plants are more like colonialist exploiters than neighbors. One way to start to eradicate this invasive plant is to get out a weed whacker, or a scythe if you’re a low-tech or anti-tech kind of nature lover, and cut all the plants off at the ground when they’re beginning to flower. The operative word is “start to,” because garlic mustard is a biennial whose seeds remain viable for up to 5 years, according to authorities such as your Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (which of course is threatened by the state’s now notorious governor, Scott Walker, which must please his anti-environmental political cronies and campaign donors like the Koch brothers).

You can also pull garlic mustard out by the roots when the plant is large enough, but this can be very labor intensive, and may disrupt the soil for other plants while encouraging new mustard plants to sprout by stirring up the soil. A third option is to fry them at the same stage of growth with one of those flame-throwing weed torches.

Since, like many other “weeds,” e.g., dandelions, garlic mustard is edible and nutritious, you might just try cooking it like you would other healthful greens such as kale, collards, turnip greens, and India mustard. The USDA’s nutrient data library www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search doesn’t list the nutritional value of garlic mustard per se, but indicates that a cup of cooked India mustard can provide half recommended adult dietary allowance of vitamin C and over a third of vitamin A, while it also contains some micronutrients that may help protect against some types of cancer and other diseases. (If you would like to a few of my excellent recipes for greens, just contact me at the address above.)

You could of course kill the garlic mustard with Roundup if you zapped it early enough in the year, before innocent plants emerge that would perish as collateral damage in a Roundup raid (since it breaks down rather quickly, Roundup doesn't remain toxic to plants for very long). But I don’t recommend Roundup (or other brands containing its active ingredient glyphosate). Besides, if you douse that garlic mustard with poison you can't eat it, and in any case, you’d probably have to apply the Roundup for several years because its not going to kill the dormant seeds.

Invasive plants are a real threat to local ecosystems, so if extirpating the garlic mustard gives you a thrill, you could branch out into battles against other aggressive weeds, of which, alas, ther is no shortage. Your DNR publishes free online material about invasives, like its Field Guide to Terrestrial Invasive Plants in Wisconsin, available at http://dnr.wi.gov/invasives/ Many other states’ environmental agencies provide information on invasive (just search for the name of the state + “invasive plants”), and resources for all states are available from individual state or regional native plant societies, the Native Plant Conservation Campaign www.plantsocieties.org, and the National Network of Invasive Plant Centers at www.invasiveplantcenters.org. 

 

What’s the Greenest Choice for House Siding?

Hey Mr. Green,

Our house needs new siding. We know that vinyl is bad, aluminum isn't great for the environment, and steel siding is coated with PVC for the color, so we were considering cement board. But we’re concerned that cement board might be made with fly ash (as part of the cement) and may pose an environmental/health risk. What can you tell us about siding?
                                                               –-Richard, in Lees Summit, Missouri

First, don’t count out plain old wood. After all, wood is manufactured primarily by solar energy, meaning that its energy demands are lower than for other products, plus it is a renewable resource. If you can get wood siding that is certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) www.fsc.org/ it’s a very reasonable option. And with the new, far less toxic paints, preserving wood is nowhere near as hazardous as back in the day when lead-tainted paint exhaled pollutants, aka Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs).

Because all the materials you mention have such different and complicated impacts from cradle to grave, it is extremely difficult to say with certainty that any one is vastly superior to any other. Yeah, I know, it sounds like a copout, but ranking such products has boggled far keener scientific minds than Mr. Green’s. Consider the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) comparison of vinyl products with other building materials and you’ll see what I mean. In trying to arrive at a rating of vinyl versus other building products, their expert panel reviewed over 2,500 documents and 890 stakeholder submissions. The conclusion? “No single material shows up as the best across all the human health and environmental impact categories, nor as the worst.” (Italics theirs.)

But considering data from this and other studies, it appears that wood and cement board are better choices than vinyl and aluminum. As for steel, although it may be coated with PCV, it requires less PCV than vinyl, and steel requires far less energy to process than aluminum. Besides, over 80% of steel is recycled, compared to about 53 percent of the aluminum, and less than 10 percent of the plastic.

As to your reservations about fly ash, it is produced by burning coal. Since this ash is captured instead of spewing out of smokestacks, it is better to recycle it in cement products than simply to dump it. (Of course it’s not safe to breathe dust from any cement product, so the manufacturer’s safety precautions should be scrupulously obeyed when installing it.)

Finally, there’s the intangible aesthetic dimension. In the end, you should choose a material that harmonizes with the basic design of your house. We are generally happier, and less restless, irritable, and discontent if the built environment is pleasant. I have no empirical proof of this, but then neither did Sierra Club founder John Muir when he claimed that an untrammeled, healthy natural environment was good for the soul. I experienced this aesthetic revelation during  a delightful orgy of destruction when we ripped the snot-green aluminum siding off a friend’s house and uncovered the beautiful, old Spanish-style stucco-covered structure underneath this miserable clanking, dented armor. Not only do my friend and his neighbors seem more content, but he got $67 for the recycled aluminum siding, which defrayed the cost of the food and drink that fueled this stunning architectural restoration. 

Environmental (and Personal) Costs of Commuting Alone

Hey Mr. Green,

Every morning I arrive at work in my Scion xB (30 average miles per gallon) to find a parking lot full of gigantic, truck-like SUVs, all of which have transported but a single passenger. Occasionally I’ll ask a co-worker, “What kind of mileage do you get in that?” The numbers they report are shocking--always far below 20mpg. But it’s the next thing out of their mouths that really kills me: they all say something like, "But I just use it to drive the short distance to and from work, so it doesn't really matter."

I know that this response makes absolutely no sense, but I'm at a complete loss to rebut them. Can you please offer a snappy and rational response that might get one or two of these gas guzzlers to think twice? --Stumped by Chumps, in Cleveland 

Well, Stumped, I’ll let you judge whether the following comments qualify as “snappy and rational,” but at least they’re based on mathematical reality instead of the remarkable fantasies of motorists. The fact is that MOST mileage racked up by cars and SUVs is for “short distances.” The average trip to work is 12.6 miles each way, while the average of all trips is 10.1 miles, according to U.S. Department of Energy surveys. Assuming that your coworkers are typical commuters and are fortunate enough to get all weekends off plus 3 weeks’ total vacation time, they’d be making 240 trips to work annually. That’s a total of over 6,000 miles per year, or half of the 12,000 miles the average personal vehicle travels each year. So while their trips may seem short, the total impact is far greater than a family’s memorable holiday drive to visit Grandma in Dubuque.

Some scarier calculations follow from these basic numbers. An SUV driven those 6,000 miles at 15 mpg would burn over 400 gallons of fuel, emitting almost 4 tons of global-warming carbon dioxide. At $3.50 a gallon, fuel alone for the year’s commuting exceeds $2,000.  But of course gas is not the only or even the biggest expense. When you figure in financing, insurance, license, maintenance, depreciation, etc., the total cost per mile for an SUV can now run as high as 97 cents per mile, or a whopping $6,000 a year for the commute. Even a small car typically costs more than 50 cents a mile to own and operate, according to the American Automobile Association  

Considering all these moral and economic incentives, it’s astounding that more people do not carpool. But the sad fact is that 75 percent of commuters drive alone, while only 10 percent carpool, and a meager 5 percent take mass transit. If you can’t persuade friends or coworkers to share the commute, find out more about ride-sharing possibilities in your area at http://www.erideshare.com/  

Thinking Outside the Cereal Box

Hey Mr. Green,

Is it better to buy dry cereal in boxes (with waxed paper liners) or in large plastic bags? Although the boxes are recyclable, the liners aren't.  At least, I think they aren't. –-Jeanne in Fayetteville, West Virginia

Here’s the old “paper or plastic” question in a new guise. The plastic bag requires far less total energy to manufacture and recycle than the paper box and its liner, while generating less pollution and waste. And, as you say, the liner is not recyclable.

But I have some issues with any packaged cereal, regardless of the content of the container’s character. (Though I do recognize that cereal boxes can have redeeming social and cultural value. They can be quite educational, featuring historical figures, athletes, and even environmental education.  Like any halfway intelligent kid, I greatly enjoyed perusing cereal boxes, some of which actually awakened my itty-bitty enviro consciousness because they featured nice, colorful cards portraying birds, along with ornithological information about the individual species!)

Here’s the problem: People complain to me that they cannot afford organic food, and yet they are willing to shell out a hefty amount of money for cereal. For example, my price check for packaged oatmeal from name-brand producers showed a cost $2.14 to $3.54 a pound at the local supermarket, depending on the size of the box. But I can get oatmeal in bulk for 99 cents a pound and take it home in a reusable bag. So this simple product can cost two or three times as much just because it comes in a package. For the more highly processed cereals, the difference is even greater. One famous brand of oat cereal costs over four times as much as the bulk oatmeal.

What all this reflects is how the food industry cleverly positions itself between consumers and farmers in order to reap profits. At this point in history, oats are selling for $3.06 a bushel (32 pounds), or about 10 cents a pound. So the packaged product can cost up to 40 TIMES AS MUCH as its raw material. As the late, great agricultural muckraker A.V . Krebs lamented, the 8-cent charge to the retailer just to handle the coupon in the box exceeded the cost of its most basic ingredient. (Krebs’ The Corporate Reapers remains an agricultural classic.) The food industry, like others that exploit natural resources, thrives on cheap raw materials, while the primary producers get squeezed out of business by monopolies. The monopolies (or, technically, oligopolies) keep farm prices low, a situation that has only worsened over the years. In 1950, the farmer received an average of about 50 cents of every dollar consumers spent on food. Today, the farmer gets less than 20 cents out of that dollar. The proliferation of highly processed, costlier foods makes this possible, often with unhealthy results. These are the obvious reasons why it’s  best to get back to the basic and favor minimally processed, minimally packaged foods.

Microwave popcorn is my pet peeve in this regard. For a critique of this loathesome product (and valuable suggestions for environmentally righteous eating), see http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200611/tenways.asp One correction, however: I report that George Washington died from a fatal case of quinsy after riding around inspecting his plantation in bad weather. Historical scholars inform me that the great man did not perish directly from the quinsy, but because his doctor overdid that common and now discredited practice of bleeding the patient. A classic case of iatrogenic excess.