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BigWallop
 
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"Adrian" wrote in message
. 244.170...
All,

We're about to start on doing some major work to the back garden,

including
replacing a retaining wall (about 500mm). We were planning on using
recycled railway sleepers for this, laid horizontally.

We knew there were certain caveats on these - something to do with the
preservatives that had been used causing anybody that goes within a mile

of
'em to grow three heads or something - but we're finding some of the

people
quoting are more than a bit reluctant.

We've heard that they're just plain illegal and unobtainable.

Then we've heard that they're illegal anywhere near where you may be
growing food. We probably won't be, but there's a possibility there'll be

a
few veggies or more likely herbs in a bed bordered with them.

Now we've heard they're really not all that suitable, and likely to warp
and not hold well.

Thoughts? Is it just that they don't much like the idea of lugging the
bloody things through the house to the back garden but don't want to say
so?

Old recycled sleepers are not really suitable for a garden where people are
sitting on them, or making use of them as flower bed borders and veggie bed
borders (if that's what you'd call them), because they were pressure treated
and embedded with very strong chemical preservatives. These chemicals were
known to cause skin irritation and sometimes cancers. They would also leak
these chemicals into the surrounding soil and kill off the plants that were
grown there. But that was the old recycled sleepers which I think are now
illegal to sell to the general public for all those very reasons.

New sleepers are obtainable though, and these have not been given the strong
treatment that the older ones got. These can be used quite safely for
around the house uses. So you can have the newer ones without worries.

This site tells some more tales on them:
http://www.rdgservices.com/newsleepers.html