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Using Cardboard and Paper Wisely in the Compost and the Garden
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Q. I'm a devoted fan of your show looking for composting advice. Many gardening websites recommend adding shredded paper to your compost pile. I'm concerned that the ink on printed paper contains chemicals, and I won't have a truly organic compost come next spring. So should I add paper? Not add paper? Help!
- ---Anne in Doylestown, PA
- Paper is one of the most easily recycled materials in today's enlightened world. Virtually everyone has an easy way to get old newspapers, magazines and mixed paper into a stream where it gets turned into more paper, tissues, toilet paper or some other essential element of modern society, thus reducing the need for the raw material needed to make virgin paper (otherwise known as 'trees').
- While some modern inks (like the soy-based inks that have become popular in newspaper printing) are fairly innocuous, inks that are made for some other purposes still use petroleum and metals in their manufacture. (A good example is slick paper, where soy inks dry too slowly to be practical.) In addition, some paper itself has been bleached with chlorine, a particularly nasty player whose breakdown produces dangerous dioxins.
- Most importantly, there is little to no nutrition left in processed paper, and it won't add much—if any—fertilizing or disease-preventing power to the finished product. That's why I'm always yelling at allayouse to collect and shred massive amounts of fall leaves; shredded leaves make the finest disease-preventing, soil-enhancing, plant-feeding compost. If you have a compost pile where the predominant "brown materials" are paper instead of leaves, you are creating the equivalent of a heavily-processed artificial fast food for your plants. Compost made with shredded leaves is minimally processed, high quality slow food—and it's local too!
- ---Catherine in Nokesville, VA
- ---Sandy in Kutztown, PA
(Your 'brown craft paper' is yet another animal. As far as I can tell, it's actually called 'kraft paper', a term ('krafting') that refers to a special manufacturing process that makes the paper very liquid proof, thus befitting its preferred old-time use for wrapping meat and fish. Some kraft paper, I am told, is also oiled or waxed to make it even better at resisting leakage. I'm pretty comfortable with it being used as weed barrier; but you'd have to go out and buy it, whereby most of us have a lot of old cardboard boxes and daily newspapers sitting around, begging for re-use.)
Now, how to use cardboard and newsprint: I recommend that gardeners planning to build raised beds level the soil, mark out the areas for the beds—no more than four feet wide but as long as you want—lay down single pieces of cardboard or entire sections of newspapers over the bare ground and then build and fill the raised bed frames overtop of that. (See this previous Question of the Week for more on raised bed building.)
Same with the walking lanes (which should be two feet wide by the way); lay down cardboard or newspapers and then cover this rustic weed barrier with the mulch of your choice. (Don't waste your precious shredded leaves or compost for this necessary chore; this is one of the only good uses for shredded bark and wood chips.)
Is this plan 100% free of potential chemicals? Of course it isn't. Neither is rainwater, animal manure, or scraps from conventionally grown produce. You pays your money and you takes your choices. I, for instance, will mix some horse manure into my compost piles when it's available, knowing that the horse may have been medicated. To me, it's still a great use of a nutrient rich ingredient, and I accept the small amount of risk.
Whereas I see no benefit and way too much risk in making compost from paper—too many problems; too little nutrition; too many other and better ways to reuse the paper; too much really good compost available elsewhere.
And as previously noted, I've gradually come to the conclusion that it's perfectly acceptable to use cardboard and newsprint (but not slick magazines or mixed paper) as weedblock. You may come to a different conclusion. That's fine—it's your garden.
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Helpful Products from Gardens Alive!
-
Compost Alive!® Compost Activator with Quick-Start™
-
Heavy Weight Weed Barrier Mat
-
Rapid Blend™ Easy Composter