Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/03/is-it-ok-to-toss-your-apple-co.html
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Yeah…I don’t know about that. Banana peels and apple cores in our compost heap are basically soil in about a month. Squash shells are about the longest lasting things (I’ve found those 6+ months later). This is a very small compost heap, with no serious anaerobic activity going on, just insect larvae, worms and ants.
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Now Osage oranges? Those things will last for 10 years. We should just schop down all of the Bois D’arc trees. Horrible litter. Also, absolutely nothing will eat that fruit in America
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Bodark apples/ osage oranges. My granny used to use them as household pest repellent. Put one in the closet or back of the pantry. I haven’t a clue on how effective they were. But they didn’t cause problems vs using poison.
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I think you are nailing what the point here is…if you are hiking and at the top of the treeline…pack your stuff out. If you are driving or walking near an active low ground forest line…you’re probably fine to toss an apple core out. There will be things to eat it/dispose of it there, not so much at say 4000 ft.
In other words…use some common sense because the answer is “it depends”.
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They’re good wood for bows, pegs, and firewood. Admittedly the market for bows isn’t what it was 500 years ago.
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I live in a temperate rainforest. I’m pretty sure something will eat my apple core before it can even go brown, much less rot.
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Disappointing.
I tossed my empty out the window and popped the top from another can of Schlitz. Littering the public highway? Of course I litter the public highway. Every chance I get. After all, it’s not the beer cans that are ugly; it’s the highway that is ugly.
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All the camping guides used to say to bury everything. I suppose by now that’s morphed to “carry it out”.
Wouldn’t there also be concern about apple trees growing from seed, in places where they weren’t expected?
Though forty years ago, the people running Greenpeace Toronto lived in kind of suburbia, and they left their front lawn natural. So we were encouraged to toss apple cores there, sort of a more natural compost pile.
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Drop a peel in say the jungles of Costa Rica and it’s most likely gone in an hr either eaten or chopped up and carried away by leaf cutters. Rotting happens faster too.
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Same here.
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The key words here are “compost heap”.
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Yes
One weeder has come across a number of apple trees which are a result of a careless punter chucking their apple core.
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If those apples aren’t native to the rainforest then they shouldn’t be eating it. Take your rubbish home.
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After six months, the orange peels had dried out, the banana peel had turned black, the chewing gum was the same and the tissue had become a blob. Nothing had been eaten or had rotted.
hnnn… the chewing gum and (moisturizer treated) tissue are indeed not resolving themselves as we might hope. But “dried out” “turned black” is really part of the proper process. Just think about a pine needle, it sits there for several years before some nematode or mycelium takes it in. That is, “decay” here is not being judged in a proper sense with time the only factor. And without forced judgment on the apple tree along the trail dumping its genetic material hither and yon [fade to wizard of oz apple tree scene]
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After seeing what happens to gum on sidewalks, I have no problem tossing it on a highway (nowhere near a sidewalk). My 1"x1" patch on the nations infrastructure.
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Came to say this.
I wish I could get my hands on osage but it’s not native to the Northeast. Granted that the staves usually have a lot of “character” and are a pain to work, but man are they durable. Best I can do around here is hickory.
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The apple trees aren’t prolific enough growers. They’d get overshadowed by the much larger trees and wouldn’t make it past germination.
And these forests are only about a hundred years old anyway. They were completely clearcut by the 1900s, and are full of non native stuff.
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Apples of all sorts are native to the PNW rainforest or at least the surrounding areas. They are in lots of backyards here whether you want them or not.
ETA also what @LDoBe said about the forest itself, apple trees do not grow even close to big enough to survive long term in the forest proper.
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