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Comment by sevensor | Hacker News Reader

> and not where it can have direct contact with people.

Could you expand on that? My elementary school had a playground structure made of old utility poles. Other than getting pitch on our clothes, they didn't seem particularly hazardous.

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They're treated with lots of preservatives. They're probably not all that dangerous in the short term (unless you eat some of the pitch), but it's annoying to deal with the potential long term safety. My scoutmaster worked for the power company, and I was going to ask him if we could have a couple of poles for my Eagle project, but after looking at what you had to do to reuse them I decided it was simply too much of a hassle.

> potential long term safety

Some of the older ones near me have already been vandalized by woodpeckers

Could be a lack of awareness, as this was several decades ago. We also had a jungle gym made from pipes set in a concrete pad.

It may be the same thing as railway sleepers: they are treated with Creosote, which is not a very good chemical

It's a great chemical, but an awful snack.

Can confirm they use creosote....nasty nasty stuff.

Yeah, doesn't smell good when you burn it either.

Like pressure treated lumber, the chemicals used to make the poles less susceptible to bugs/rot/etc can be hazardous to people. Until a few years ago, arsenic was one of the components used -- in commercially available pressure treated lumber. I suspect the same chemical cocktail has been used in poles.

(edit -- add commercially available lumber clarification)

I'm not an expert, but I can guess it depends on the pole and how it's been treated. The company I called gave me a list of disclosures and guidelines for re-use. Maybe the poles you see haven't been treated with such-and-such chemicals.

Probably because the gasses that the poles produce when burning are prohibited by fire code.

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