By Ken McEntee In theory, expanding a mulch producing operation into compost production sounds like an ideal way to add an additional revenue stream. Unfortunately, say some people in the mulch business, the complications of permitting and the expense of purchasing composting equipment often can make compost production more trouble than it’s worth. Others, however, say that restricting feedstock to …

By P.J. Heller Massive amounts of wood waste generated by Hurricane Irma in Florida — from trees and branches to damaged or destroyed homes, buildings and other structures — is continuing to make its way to landfills and waste-to-energy plants throughout the Sunshine State months after the storm ravaged much of southwest Florida. Only a small amount of the felled …

By P.J. Heller When the Eastman Kodak Company introduced Kodachrome film in 1935, it changed the way the people worldwide looked at films and images, from a black-and-white view to a palette of vivid colors. A similar eye-popping experience occurred in 1954 with the introduction of color television. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the outdoors began taking on …

By Bob LaGasse, MSC Executive Director For years, local fire marshals have been promoting the urban myth of spontaneous combustion of mulch in home gardens and landscape applications. In 2016 we saw a significant increase in the number of reports of local mulch fires, particularly in landscapes around businesses where the cause was attributed to improper disposal of smoking materials, …

By Robert LaGasse, MSC Executive Director The National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) of the U.S. Department of Commerce is headquartered in Gaithersburg, MD, and helps coordinate industry and regulatory issues —including weights & measures — in interstate commerce. NIST handbooks provide guidelines for uniform standards and testing utilized by most state and local governments as well as private …

By Veronica Harrison Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO) reintroduced the Water Rights Protection Act (WRPA) at a hearing of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans on May 18, 2017. The bill passed the House of Representatives in the 113th and 114th Congresses with bipartisan support, but it never received a vote in the Senate. WRPA would uphold …

By Kathy Hoekstra The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of the Army, and Army Corps of Engineers proposed a rule to rescind the controversial 2015 Waters of the United States rule. The Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule is closer to being removed from the Federal Register after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of the Army, and …

By Ken McEntee “Good luck. Tell us how you do.” Robert Smith, chief of operations for the North Collier (County, Florida) Fire and Rescue District, said he heard that line a lot as he called fire departments around the country for advice about fighting a massive mulch and compost fire at the end of April. The blaze – the second …

By Dr. Brian E. Jackson and Dr. Bill Fonteno An overview of the activities and programs happening in the Horticultural Substrates Laboratory (HSL) at NC State University (NCSU) Past and Ongoing Endeavors For more than 35 years, the Horticultural Substrates Laboratory (HSL) at NC State University (NCSU) has worked with the mulch and soil industry, solving problems in manufacturing, quality …

By Ken McEntee By most anecdotal accounts, mulch industry sales were up in 2016 compared to 2015. Survey responses and conversations with mulch producers from around the U.S. suggested that colored mulch continued to gain in popularity, while consumers increasingly are gravitating toward bagged products over bulk, primarily due to convenience of transporting and spreading the material. “I think sales …