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> It's basically impossible to build them out of wood without lining them with something which may have negative health effects to humans or plants.

There are plenty of known-safe materials to line garden beds with. Even unlined treated timber has been shown to be safe with only tiny trace amount of treatment making it into the plant. You might be being too paranoid for your own good.

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Yeah raw untreated cedar has worked great for me

exactly how much arsenic are you comfortable eating in your home grown vegetables?

The research is clear here. Modern CCA treatments (the only one with arsenic) require preservatives to be applied first which prevent leaching of arsenic. There has never been a study that I can find which shows a genuine risk of arsenic toxicity from eating from a treated garden bed where crops are planted at least a few cm from the edge of the bed.

And if that's not enough, choose one of the many other treatment options, or line your bed with a proven-safe polythene liner, or use untreated timbers that are resistant to rot like cedar/macrocarpa. If you have any real research to show that any of these options are unsafe I would love to read it.

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