HelpfulGardener.com

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I don't have a shortage of browns. I shy away from cardboard because I worry about the inks. I don't know much about inks outside of domestic newspapers using soy to get away from haz mat handling issues.

I suppose food packing boxes should be safe.

I'm not overly sensitive since I do use shredded office paper which comes from photocopiers and laser printers which means toner. Toner is essentially a non-toxic plastic. To paraphrase the response I got from Xerox: the paper will break down but the toner will not.

I can get shredded paper and don't have to shred cardboard so it's an easy decision.

I'd look out for anything that might be printed overseas.

two cents

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Thanks Rot. All good things to think on...

HG

I also use quite of bit of cardboard at this time of year. I'm out of leaves from last year and don't have any yet from this year and all my veggie scraps and the last few weeks the grass grew like it was on steroids so I needed lots of brown. I don't do much cutting or shredding I more or less lay it down and slice it up with a utility knife. It makes some small pieces and some not so small pieces. after some water and some moist greens it just falls apart.

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>I more or less lay it down and slice it up with a utility knife.<

I like that. I'm stealing it next time I need to deal with cardboard.

Do anything with newspaper?

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"All good things to think on... "

Thank you. I like to think about how to remediate what I can. Please keep 'em coming and keep in mind us lazy folks too.

OK everybody: let's rot.

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The cardboard cartons I used were just small ones, the largest being about 6 x 12 x 18. I used a box knife to cut them into sections, and then ran each section through my cross-cut paper shredder. I figured it shouldn't be any harder to cut up a piece of cardboard that size, than it would be to cut up a CD. The thing is supposed to be able to cut up 1 CD at a time.

I ended up with nice little 1/2" x 1/4 " pieces of cardboard. They ought to compost fairly well, I would think. [img]https://bestsmileys.com/clueless/4.gif[/img]

Oh yeah... shredding them is great! I don't bother, just tear it up in pieces, but it will definitely compost down quicker, shredded.

or you could use my household's rather passive technique of forgetting about leaving a couple of broken down corrugated boxes out back of the house until the layers have parted on their own from months worth of rain. real easy to rip up then.