compostable?

Like a lot of people worried about so called identity theft I now shred pretty well everything that has our details on it. This creates a fair bit of shredded paper. Does anyone know if it is possible to compost the 'shreddies' or is it too contaminated with chemicles (ink, paper gloss etc) to use?

 

Hi C-..I did mine today and had a carrier bag of the stuff and I mixed the lot in,every two weeks I do the same. I don't grow my own veg so any chemicals in there wouldn't end up in me,well, only via the odd Nasturtium

[ 20. January 2007, 07:39 PM: Message edited by: Paladin ]

 

I re-use sacks of shredded paper from the school office where I work.

First, my four guinea pigs use it as bedding in their weekly 'floortime' pen, thus helpfully making it wet and pre-fertilized. Then I add it to the biggest of my composts - the heap behind the shed. Here the worms and woodlice love the mixture of shredded paper, newspaper, and other animal bedding (with just a little green matter added in between.) Most definitely one of my more successful heaps!

I would however avoid glossy paper, and just stick to the letters and other confidential papers.

 

I am sure there are no problems. I compost loads of newspaper now. But I won't do glossy coloured magazines. In the past the bright colours were heavy metals which are poisonous - thou I suspect that they no longer use these.

 

We shred up all our local newspapers we get and envelopes as well.Like PeterS we do not recycle glossy magazines as I have found they do not rot down as well,so these go in the recycling bin..

 

Hi
Well we shred are paper then soak it in water, then most of the ink comes out and it has made the paper soggy so it rots down easier.I think you should try this

kind regards boygardener

 

We don't bother to soak it.We just spread it on top of the haep and mix it in.The rain does the rest.I have just opened our 1st bin and it has already rotted down nicely.You cannot tell there was paper in there,all nice crumbly stuff

 

It never occurred to me to soak the paper, boy gardener - thanks to all of you for your comments, I will now put all the shreddies in the compost bin