Have a guess what this stuff is I just dug up

Because I don't have a clue.

Dug this up about an hour ago. I was finding little bits here and there about the size of a ferrero rocher and thought it was just chalk but now I'm finding great packs of the stuff buried in large quantities under bits of the old garage base I thought had been completely removed.



I'm starting to wonder if it's something that wasn't easy to dispose of (I've already dug up lots asbestos sheets). I'm hoping it's a large stash of cocaine.

 

Jane ~ Looks like one for Ziggy in the GC forensics department.

 

I'm a bit flummoxed by it, but I would err on the side of caution.

Without having a hands on look I wouldn't like to say. Don't look like any Coke i've ever seen.

Best contact environmental health & tell them it could be illegal landfill.

 

is it hard like chalk and limestone? or is it a bit soft and pliable?

 

Or a bit spongy like 1970's stripped artex full of asbestos?

 

okay don't bother touching it just ring the council and get them to send some boys in hazmat suits round

 

It defiantly feels like chalk to me. I'm a bit concerned why some of the posters in this thread are telling me to ring the council. Care to enlighten me on what it could be before I ring them please?

 

To really diagnose what it is would cost,there is a good chance it is artex which until recently contained asbestos.The only legal way to remove it, if is would be the expensive route.Some councils will allow you to buy double bags at a £1.00 a time which are then disposed of in a special locked skip.
If there is only a small amount,a small empty paint can full you might get away with just disposing of it as mixed waste at the local tip.But if it was asbestos and you got caught they would sentence you to being hung drawn and quartered.

 

Hi Jane,

The worry is, we don't know what it is. It could be anything & we don't want you being exposed to something that might be potentially harmfull.

Chances are it might be just some old bags of fertiliser or plaster that went off, but if its a pile of DDT that someone didn't know what to do with then it could be nasty.

 

Several years ago on holiday on a coastal campsite in Italy in a pine forrest
They sprayed DDT daily for the mosquitoes, not a hand spray but a girt big tractor with a tanker on the back and a 4" dia spray, they sprayed the grounds, the tents and the people, made everyone cough and choke a bit, but a bottle of wine cured it
They did this every year for say ten years,

I do not think it has affected meeeeeee yeoooowl, my kids have the same amount of fingers as I, six fingers and a thumb on each hand and webbed feet, so I do not know what the worry would beeeee yeoooowlle

Too much elf and saftey these days
On warships, they are not all boxed in and tidy like cruise ships
they are open pipework lagged in asbestos, the top bunk when you were in it had three inches clearance from the piping, and when the ship bumped and rocked the white dust used to fall especially off the hot superheated steam pipes

Jack McH

 

White truffles?? (you live in hope!!)

 

Can anyone tell me how artex was applied? I imagined it was like plaster and was slapped on and set hard. But if this stuff was artex, which it does sound like, what I can't understand is why it's all the same thickness. There's no pattens on it either.

 

Dig it out and take it to the tip.
Put it in bags and throw it in the non recyclable area.

You can get bogged down these days with red tape, its just something you dug out your garden, full stop.

If you have some earth or concrete to dispose of mix it in with that and put it in the correct container at the dump.
Assume its harmless unless told otherwise.
Make sure it stays damp.

I wonder how many people are now checking out their ceilings.

 

Its trowelled on & then the pattern is put into it wet. If it gets scraped off & buried it will take on water & become a soggy lump. Pete is right, if its kept wet it won't be a danger, but if you get the dust on something else & it dries out then it could become a problem.

But thats assuming its artex, we don't know what it is so we don't know what problems it could cause.

There was a terrible case in South America where some kids found a load of bright blue powder which, being kids, they used as facepaint & allsorts, turned out it was radioactive material from an illegally dumped bit of medical equipment.

 

That's horrible