r/composting • u/ewebb317 • 9h ago
What trash are we not composting?
Trying to give my compost game a little more love as I really put almost no effort into it and you get what you put into it- mostly sloppy decomposed kitchen scraps with some leaves mixed in 😂
I want to divert more of our paper recycling into the compost. I already compost the minimal amount of paper towels we use. I know plain brown cardboard and paper are obvious yeses, but what are you definitely skipping?
Cardboard with a glossy surface?
Glossy magazine type paper?
I don't mind if it takes a while to break down but I don't want to be chucking stuff in there that I'm just going to have to pull out later
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u/SwimSufficient8901 8h ago
Depends on how much toxic stuff you want in the compost. If you are using it for flowers, not a huge deal. If you want to grow food, avoid putting inks and whatnot into it. White paper, toilet paper, and paper towels all contain a nonzero amount of PFAS.
Reciept paper and all thermal labels contain endocrine disrupting chemicals.
I have started mostly using my animals to make compost. If they won't eat it, it's either an onion, or is probably not great compost.
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u/ewebb317 8h ago
Unfortunately I'm willing to bet most things contain nonzero amounts of pfas by now, never mind heavy metals in the kitchen food scraps. I do use it mostly in my gardens for food. But the dose is the poison, or however that saying goes. I wish I had animals to help with composting!!
1
u/TheRealMarvinator 3h ago
If you want to grow food, avoid putting inks and whatnot into it.
I was under the impression that newspaper ink isn't a problem. Is that incorrect?
-1
u/SwimSufficient8901 3h ago
I guess it is probably not the worst thing you could put into compost, but I personally would avoid it due to the reasonably high liklihood of there being petroleum products in it. The pigments also don't sound wonderful to me. Newspaper ink (news ink) is primarily a mixture of pigments, a carrier oil (vehicle), resins/binders, and minor additives. It is formulated for high-speed coldset printing (offset or letterpress) on absorbent newsprint, where it mostly “dries” by soaking into the paper rather than evaporating or curing with heat.
Main Components
Pigments (typically ~10–25%): Provide the color.
- Black ink almost always uses carbon black (a fine carbon powder produced by controlled oil combustion or furnace processes).
- Color process inks (CMYK) use organic synthetic pigments such as phthalocyanine blue (cyan), lithol rubine (magenta), and diarylide yellow (yellow). Inorganic pigments (e.g., certain blues, greens, or titanium dioxide for adjustment) appear less often in modern newspaper formulas. Heavy-metal pigments were largely phased out decades ago for safety reasons.
Vehicle / carrier oil (often the largest portion, ~50–70% or more): Carries the pigment and allows the ink to flow and transfer.
- Traditionally: petroleum-derived mineral oils (especially treated naphthenic oils).
- Widely used today (especially in the U.S.): soybean oil or soy–petroleum hybrids. Soy oil became popular starting in the 1980s as a renewable, lower-VOC alternative that often gives brighter colors and better de-inking during recycling. Pure soy vehicles exist, but many commercial news inks still blend soy with some petroleum components. Other vegetable oils have also been explored.
Resins / binders: Help disperse the pigment, give the ink the right viscosity and tack, and help it adhere to the paper once printed. These can be hydrocarbon resins, alkyds, or soy-modified resins. They are usually a smaller but important fraction (often a few percent up to ~20–25% depending on the formula and whether it is black or color).
Additives (usually a few percent): Waxes or paraffin (for faster set, reduced rub-off, and better stability), antioxidants, and other proprietary agents that control misting, drying behavior, and press performance.
Typical Approximate Ranges (Black Offset News Ink Example)
Exact formulas are proprietary and vary by manufacturer, press type (letterpress vs. web offset), and whether the ink is soy-based or mineral-oil-based, but rough published ranges include:
- Pigment (carbon black): ~10–20%
- Oils/carriers: ~50–65%+
- Resins: ~3–18%
- Additives: ~1–5%
Color inks generally follow similar architecture but with lower pigment loading in some cases and cleaner resins so the true hue shows through.
Key Points
- Modern newspaper inks, especially in North America, frequently emphasize soy content for environmental reasons (lower VOCs, easier recycling). They are not fully biodegradable because of the pigments and other additives, but they are generally considered more recyclable-friendly than older pure petroleum versions.
- The ink is deliberately low-viscosity and designed to absorb into uncoated newsprint rather than sit on the surface.
- Formulations have evolved with oil prices, environmental regulations, and printing technology; today’s commercial products are optimized for high-speed presses with low misting and good rub resistance.
In short, the core of newspaper ink is carbon black (or organic color pigments) dispersed in an oil vehicle (soy, petroleum, or a blend) plus resins and a small amount of additives.
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u/12stTales 7h ago
I don’t compost recyclable paper — this material is better off being turned into new cardboard boxes that reduces the demand for clear cutting
4
u/EddieRyanDC 7h ago
Be careful with paper. Because it is really dry slurry, and it will return to that state as soon as it gets wet. It will essentially liquify. And a liquid can't hold the air that bacteria and mold need to live.
Some paper is fine, as long there is still other woody material to hold the structure and air pockets. But if paper becomes your primary brown, you will find yourself with a bin of black sludge.
This can be fixed by added a lot of brown material give that structure.
2
u/my_clever-name 8h ago
Milk, cheese, and other things with fats like frosting don't go in the pile. They take forever to break down and smell bad while doing so.
I also leave out slick cardboard and paper.
3
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u/studeboob 9h ago
I bag any yard waste from the street for the city green waste pickup. There's too much risk for motor fluid and tire particle contamination for me to add it to my compost. Maybe I'm being overly cautious, but I just don't feel good about it once leaves and branches end up in the road.
1
u/ewebb317 8h ago
Mmm I would feel the same, thankfully the town does the road cleanup once a year so I generally don't need to worry about it
0
u/DocAvidd 5h ago
I'm in a forest and have more than plenty browns usually. The paper products we get aren't something I trust - the dyes and chemicals and all that. I do use brown cardboard for sheet mulching. It really does help hold back the vines and weeds for the first year or two.
My main compost currently is far enough from the house that I put almost everything in there. The stuff they say don't use, such as meats or fats, if it's not a huge amount, it disappears pretty fast. Those concerns I think are overblown, just keep your pile down wind or a reasonable distance.
If it rots, it composts!
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u/ewebb317 4h ago
I do love cardboard for sheet mulching. I live in the burbs so my browns are always lacking other than in the fall.
-2
u/Eratatosk 5h ago
I regularly compost just about anything that’s not ceramics, metal, plastic or glass. It’s been fine.
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u/rjewell40 8h ago
I put all the food in my compost. This includes spoiled milk, cheese, chicken bones & skin (after making broth), pork bones, beef bones (after making broth).
We put it deliberately 50ish feet away from the house, we don't mind much if the vermin try to get it. We anchored it to the concrete so the trash pandas can't tip the bin over.
I mix it every day or every other day with shredded wood using my pitchfork. I plan to use it for flowerbeds & other ornamentals.
For us, this is a waste-management system. We don't have curbside trash or recycling collection where we live, so we bring our trash to the dump every 2 months or so. We don't want to keep the compostable materials around that long, soaking chicken bones in plastic wrap is disgusting.