Ink in newpaper recycling?

When you put your newspaper on your compost, is the ink bad for it? Especially ink now a days. Any one thoughts on this?

 

For health and safety reasons, newspaper producers have to make sure the ink they use and also the paper are not going to poison anyone who comes in contact with them. Generaly, newspaper ink is mineral oil based and most paper is natural fibre(wood based).The approximate coverage on a printed page is around 4% with a little more if there are heavy blocks of ink(banners or pics).For glossy mags, a different system is used and it's not advised to compost these.If you google 'newsprint' you'll get all sorts of in depth discussion on the subject. In the end it's your decision.

 

Black ink, I think , has always been a form of soot, which is carbon and harmless.

However, traditionally, strong coloured inks in glossy magazines have used heavy metals. These are poisonous to plants and to people, and I think that this is the area that people are worried about. Heavy metals give very bright colours, but are expensive. So I would avoid composting any expensive, glossy magazines.

However, as Terrier says, much has changed and a lot of work is being done to make material easier to recycle. Newsprint has to be very cheap so I suspect there is no risk of heavy metals there. I am happy to compost my newspapers, but I wouldn't compost any other printed material.

This comment, just googled without knowing the full context, implies that heavy metals haven't entirely disappeared. http://www.pneac.org/listserv/printech/0202/0202ask8.html

 

Ah thanks guys. I'll stop composting glossy mags then. Just use the recycling bag for those.