Few things are more gratifying than finishing a long, labor-intensive home project. Except, of course, if that home project involves toxic blue mulch and the finger-wagging of redditors.
One man figured this out the hard way after uploading his resurfacing project to Reddit. User LogicWaveLength, who lives in New Jersey, was tired of the river rock that surrounded his beach property. With two kids and a lot of bare feet, he decided to replace it with blue rubber mulch.
Before
Screengrab via Imgur
After
Screengrab via Imgur
In the post, he wrote:
Overall, I am really proud of my work. It took me well over 30 hours of time, and accounting for materials I could see some landscaper charging $4-5,000 or more for this work. Instead, my total materials cost was $950 delivered for the mulch, $80 for the shower mat, and approximately $80 for the stuff from Lowes (a tined rake, gravel, plastic lawn divider stuff, weed barrier, staples and stakes) for a rough total of $1,100 or so… and a really sore back and shoulders.
But Reddit was less impressed. Several commenters pointed out that rubber mulch has been linked to cancer. Others noted that the rubber mulch sticks to feet and shoes and will probably run off into the nearby ocean.
User iworshipme wrote, “I mean no offense but did you just knowingly lay out a huge amount of rubber that in all likelihood will get washed into the ocean and our backyards during the next storm, in a location that has hurricanes? Or did I miss that the rubber is biodegradable?”
He later adds, “Edit: It is not biodegradable :(.”
The post has gone viral on Reddit with over 4,000 up votes and over 1,200 comments.
LogicWaveLength didn’t seem too concerned about his toxic mulch, however. “Reddit telling me I’m giving my family rubber mulch cancer hit /r/all? he wrote in the comments. “Sweet! What page was I on? I feel famous now.”