Compost newspaper

I can send you a couple of binliners of rabbit litter if you like, Pete, that seems to rot down the newspaper pretty quick :rolleyes:

 

Another interesting one for the postie..... :rolleyes:

 

LOL :D

 

It would be a muckle thick layer too with three or four 3" to 4" layers of peat sub., manure, soil and leaves.

BTW Worms also go a bundle on marmite!

 

Sparkle - you really never quite know, but I think it is pretty safe to compost newspaper. Black ink is just soot or a close relative, which is extremely cheap. Soot is of course carbon, the basic building block of all organic material. I think, the cheaper the product, the safer it is. High quality coloured ink is more of a problem. I believe nowadays most colours are organic chemicals and safe, but the expensive glossy colours used to be and could still be salts of heavy metals, which are poisonous. Consequently I would never compost glossy coloured things.

Marge - Thanks for the offer, but ....

Lapod - there is or was quite a craze in America for lasagna beds as you described - and they sound sensible - its an in situ compost heap. If I had empty beds I would bury my paper in them, but my beds are full of perennials and still in flower. Even when they have died back the plants are still there and you can't really dig around. A solution would be to just lay the paper on top of the soil - but it might either blow away or keep the light from the plants.

 

Problem is that in order for anything to rot down it needs air - burying paper is no solution as it has been well documented that unless it is shredded or otherwise broken up the rate of decomposition for paper is extremely slow.

Using it as a mulch will obviously help keep down the weeds and hold the moisture in but a 6ft. pile will cover a lot of ground.

Suggest your local authority should get it's act together and take away the recyclables as do most.......

 

We have a green bin garden refuse and kitchen.

A green box for plastic bottles and glass jars and our newspapers go in that box also.

A black bin for anything that can not be recycle we also have a vey good recycle skip in our neighbourhood.

Very interesting to here how others recycle.

 

dendy - sorry I'm late getting back but ....

I think that all Germany has bins for different things, the colours varying, etc. In my town we have the blue bins for paper now, then the green for bio stuff, we put plastic, metal, syropor, etc, in yellow plastic bags (supplied free) to be recycled and then whatever is left over into the black garbage cans. We are a tidy and colourful lot.

 

when growing potatos you can put lots of sheets of newspaper on the bottom of the trough covered with grass clippings and comfrey then put your tatties on top.

If you have clay soil I imagine papers would lighten the soil if you just dug them in.

 

For Scotkat - we have a large black wheely bin (without microchip) for general refuse plus a black box for paper/cardboard and a purple box for bottles and containers glass and plastic.

In a previous life I was involved in the problems of packaging waste - Germany was always held up to be very good until it was found that much of their waste was going out of the country as there were no facilities for recycling!

 

sparkle - I think most print in this country is made with soya oil -

 

That was very likely true some years ago but in the meantime I think that everything is recycled in Germany now. At least I hope so! - as I don't think it is right for anyone to send their garbage to other people. It is about like giving your garbage to your neighbour to dispose of!

 

How on earth did you find that out Dave W, the mind boggles.

 

I don't want to know - might hear something really yukky!

 

Didn't somebody post that info on here a few months ago? I seem to remember that's where I heard it......