cableace
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Cigarette packs and mail ok for compost?

I'm new to composting and just started my bin!! I was wondering if cigarette packs and other old mail are ok for my pile?? I run them all thru a crosscut shredder first so it is all small pieces but I was more curious about the ink used and if it is detrimental to my compost pile??

pepperhead212
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Welcome to the forum!

While we have pretty much safe inks, even in our colors, some countries still use some unsafe inks, maybe even the black. And, while we have made shiny paper safe, again, some countries may be still producing paper products using old methods, so beware.

HoneyBerry
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Some mail has glue on it. Cigarette packs probably do too. I am picky about what I throw on my compost pile because I don't want impurities. I would say no to mail & cigarette packs.

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rainbowgardener
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I recycle mail in recycle paper, not compost it. But if I needed the "browns" I wouldn't feel bad about putting most mail into compost - all the stuff on plain paper, not the shiny coated papers. The amount of glue on envelopes is miniscule compared to the volume of the compost pile and it isn't toxic: most envelope glue is produced from gum arabic, which comes from tree sap. It is safe for humans and is also used in some other things we eat (M&Ms, gumdrops, etc).

I never have cigarette packs in the house, but if I did I wouldn't compost them. The shiny and cellophane stuff doesn't break down well. And tobacco can carry tobacco mosaic virus, which is death to tomato plants. I'm no expert on this question, but I wouldn't be surprised if some virus can survive the composting process, even if the population is reduced.

So in summary, my vote is yes to most mail, no to cigarette packs.

HoneyBerry
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I did some volunteer work at a local organic farm that provides fresh food for the food banks. They throw the empty seed packages on the compost pile. I didn't like it. It made me question their integrity as an organic farm. The paper part of the seed packets is often bleached white paper, so I expect there would be traces of dioxins in that paper. Soy oil isn't the only ingredient used in soy ink. There are pigments and additives that are not soy.
I do not recommend putting printed paper products on a compost pile.

imafan26
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I would hesitate with the cigarette packs just because it might have tobacco residues and I don't need tobacco mosaic virus in my plants.

Actually the city official here said that recycling actually costs the city a lot of money since the paper and plastic need to be shipped off island and there is no local use for them. She actually said it would be better if most of the paper and plastic which has a high BTU was sent to the H-power plant to burn for electricity. It is still polluting, but so is the diesel fuel they would otherwise burn.

I only put out the recycle can out about 4 times a year. I recycle cardboard boxes at the garden for the monthly plant sales. Plastic cups are used to start plants. Quart sized bottles are used for pickles, and storing nuts, bolts, and nails, occasionally a few cookies. I give some of the bottles away to the gardeners at the community garden to use for mailboxes and other kinds of bottles with narrow necks like bleach, vinegar, shoyu, and cleaners are used to make fruit fly traps and can be used for watering bottles, and cut to make planters.

Beverage containers go to my mom, she gets 5 cents for every bottle at Reynold's recycling.

I recycle the Costco containers from the salads and baked goods a couple of times. They are good to take to parties, but I don't always get them back. I save plastic utensils, some of them become garden labels, others get washed and used again. I save the styrofoam from the packing of small appliances for the orchids and when I need packing for mailing.

Newspaper is used to line the cat's litter box, bedding for the worms, and mulch for the garden. Thick pieces of cardboard can help with weed control and is especially handy when it is rainy and muddy to have by the door.

It is always better to put things to their highest and best use and use it more than once.

HoneyBerry
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You are doing a great job! I am so proud of you. :clap: I am fortunate to work very close to a free and well managed recycling center. I am able to recycle so much. They take the high numbered plastic and even oddball plastic with no number on it. And I have been trying reduce the amount of plastic that I use. It is a challenge, but I have reduced my plastic consumption by a significant amount. Using reusable canvas shopping bags has helped a great deal. I no longer use plastic garbage bags at all. And I prefer the big paper lawn-leaf bags that the hardware store offers instead of those large black plastic garbage bags. I have been reading about all the plastic that ends up in the ocean and it makes me sick. Some of it is very small pieces of plastic from cosmetics & plastic from clothes. I could say more but I'll stop here.

toxcrusadr
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The question of contaminants from printing inks is certainly worth considering. Everything I have seen adds up to the conclusion that it would take a LOT of color printing inks to have any discernable effect on soil concentrations of metals. That said, I actually don't use them, because I happen to have very good recycling facilities available, plus I have plenty of other organic matter for composting, so I go for the highest and best use. If your situation is different, use it, but it's probably not the best.

As for other contaminants besides metals, my impression (as an env. chemist and contaminant expert) is that most printer ink ingredients other than the pigments are fairly biodegradable. There are some solvents and binders but they tend to be alcohols and other degradable compounds. Black is typically carbon black, totally harmless.

And there are no significant dioxins in white paper. Chlorine bleaching, years ago, produced small amounts, but the industry has pretty much switched over to peroxide bleaching. Dioxins are ubiquitous due to human activity, although in vanishingly small amounts, and they concentrate in fat in the food chain, so you'll get more from a glass of whole milk or a burger than from a sheet of paper. Also those taste better than paper, so don't eat paper and you'll be fine. Sounds like I'm being facetious but we haven't even covered the media transfer thing from compost ingredients to compost to soil to plant to table, which is a pretty big stretch. :-]

imafan26
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The city officially banned non-recyclable plastic bags on July 1, 2015 and a similar ban has been in effect on Maui for more than a year. Plastic bags still abound. The stores now charge you 10 cents for a "recyclable" plastic bag or you can bring your own. The clerks are having a harder time though, they automatically start bagging and forget to ask or they ask and forget and bag anyway out of habit. I do not like to have my bags checked at the store since I have a big bag essentially of bags, so now Ieave the bags in the car and bag or box everything when I get back to the car from the grocery cart.

Plastic bags cause a lot of damage to cars when they get caught up in the wheels ruining the boot when it winds around the wheels. The most harmful plastic in the ocean are the rings from six packs which get caught up around the necks of the seals. One of the yachts coming from California found an 'island' of floating flotsam made out of garbage and fish nets and organized a party with other boaters and an environmental group to go out and haul it out of the water. Apparently it was large enough to be a danger to navigation.

Foreign seaweed that comes to Hawaii on the hulls of boats are another problem. They also get hauled out of the ocean in sweeps but they are given away to anyone who wants it for compost. They do require that the compost pile is nowhere near a stream or ocean where the algae can get back into the water.

HoneyBerry
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Very interesting.
Sometimes it is as if the stores are forcing the plastic bags on me, when they don't ask me and by the time I realize it it's too late. I wish the businesses cared more about things like that.

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StevePots
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No to cigarette packs. As an ex smoker I'll tell you that the pack still has tobacco in it. Just smell it, you smell tobacco right? At a pack a day your compost pile will have a lot of tobacco and and all the nasty chemicals they treat the tobacco with in it.

toxcrusadr
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On the other hand you're not inhaling or eating the compost, so for a smoker, the risk is negligible compared to the smoking. But the earlier comments about tobacco mosaic virus concern me enough that I wouldn't put anything tobacco-related into the compost, absent more definitive info that it's not a risk. They say handling cigarettes followed by gardening can spread it, but I don't know how well it survives the compost, or whether the tiny contribution from a few flakes in the empty box would make any difference in the garden.



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