Newspaper, Compost?

[remnant]

Newspapers are made from trees meaning that in the end, they are biodegradable. Due to the cellulosic component in them, this can take a long time but can be drastically reduced by using urea and other nitrogen containing fertilizers to make fortified compost which degrades faster meditated through bacterial action.

 

[roadrunner]

Can I put newspaper in my compost? I always thought that I shouldn't, but a friend recently told me that they do. Thoughts?

I agree with others that newspapers are just fine in the compost pile, except the glossy stuff (as others have mentioned). I put shredded newspaper in my kitchen waste container, to soak up the moisture, keeps it from smelling, until I dump it in my compost.

Also, there are many other types of paper products that go in my compost, simply because it's not good for recycling. Many people throw things like pizza boxes in the recycling bin, but the recycling centers just throw that stuff out, because the greasy paper will contaminate the rest of the paper being recycled, thereby ruining the whole batch.

This link shows some good examples of non-recyclable paper products. http://www.livestrong.com/article/124467-types-paper-cannot-recycled/

Excerpt:

Soiled Paper
You should always throw dirty paper away in the trash, and never in the recycling bin. The city of San Francisco's recycling website lists pizza boxes, napkins, tissues, paper towels, paper plates and take-out boxes as common examples of unclean paper that should not be recycled. It's important not to get food in your recyclables because of the way paper is processed; it is mixed with water and turned into a slurry of pulp. If this slurry is contaminated with oil from food, it ruins the entire mixture and it must be dumped in a landfill instead of dried into new paper. Soiled paper also poses a health hazard to the people who work in the recycling plants who try to separate out contaminants. Old tissues, napkins and food can carry dangerous viruses, bacteria and molds.

Shredded Paper

Many people shred confidential papers to protect their privacy. Unfortunately, shredding paper shortens and weakens the length of the paper fiber, which needs to be long and strong in order to be worth recycling. Therefore, according to the Earth911 website, you should not put shredded paper in with your recycling. But the good news is that although you cannot recycle your shredded paper, you can compost it. It is necessary to add substances that are high in carbon and low in nitrogen, such as paper, to compost piles to offset nitrogen-rich decaying food so composting is a great way to reuse shredded paper.

 

[Beverly]

I don't know about all kinds of paper, but i have heard that newspaper is a beneficial additive to compost. I hardly see a paper newspaper any more, but i find many advertisements that come to the house (from Home Depot for example) use newsprint and i have begun shredding it and adding it to the compost. Most of the inks used on newsprint are soy based so that really isn't a concern. I also add food soiled napkins to the compost.

 

[roadrunner]

I don't know about all kinds of paper, but i have heard that newspaper is a beneficial additive to compost. I hardly see a paper newspaper any more, but i find many advertisements that come to the house (from Home Depot for example) use newsprint and i have begun shredding it and adding it to the compost. Most of the inks used on newsprint are soy based so that really isn't a concern. I also add food soiled napkins to the compost.

I also don't know about "all kinds of paper". There are some I just throw in the trash, because I know the recyclers don't want it, but it's also not good for the compost, an example are some butter wrappings which if you look closely have plastic infused, but if it's just a wax covering than I compost.

There is one type of 'paper' (I hope it's paper) that I compost, but I only put it in my heavily mulched areas of my yard and keep it away from my main garden and that's the stuff that is used as a padding for steaks and chicken. It's wrapped in plastic, I open the plastic and wash out the bloody paper -- I hate stinky trash that's why I feed it to the worms.

 

[Beverly]

I can't really comment about whether or not the padding for meat and chicken is paper, having a vegetarian household for many, many years. So the soiled napkins i put in my compost are all vegetarian too. Maybe someone more knowledgeable in this area will weight in on the subject.

 

[zigs]

The Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales did a trial with crumpled cardboard in compost, to balance out the excess nitrogen from kitchen waste.

They found no trace of chemicals from the inks in the finished product.

I'd be more worried about tea bags, they now seem to be made of plastic and don't rot down in the compost