75 Things You Didn't Know You Could Compost

planetgreen.discovery.com:

The following list is meant to get you thinking about your compost possibilities. Not every item on the list is for everyone, and that's fine. Imagine how much trash we could prevent from going into the landfills if each of us just decided to compost a few more things. Here are 75 ideas to get you started.

Read the whole story: planetgreen.discovery.com

Comments

[starrianna]

05:06 PM on 08/03/2009

John McCain's diapers!

[madfigs]

12:21 PM on 08/03/2009

Condoms? I don't think so!
Cooked food and meaty doggie kibbles? Maybe if I wanted a rat problem!

[sixyfivepercentwater]

08:40 AM on 08/03/2009

As a Master Gardener and avid composter, I'm alarmed by several thing on this list. Pasta has egg in it, which makes it not a compostable item. (Leave extra pasta out for birds.) Likewise cheese and ice cream, which are milk-based and therefore contain protein. Dry dog and cat food are chock full of protein, which makes them the last thing anyone would want in the compost pile. Those would all be very bad things to put in the compost unless the goal were to produce horrible smells and attract any hungry creature within a half mile radius, very much including rats.

In regard to cereal and saltines, I wouldn't put anything salty or which contained additives and chemicals into a compost pile. I also wouldn't feel good about using compost that might contain bamboo skewers or toothpicks unless I wanted unexpected body piercing. And condoms? Excuse me? Not to put too fine a point on it, but used condoms have. . um, _contents_ which are a biohazard and just plain yucky. Some things are meant to be thrown away.

Composting is a simple, easy process that doesn't need to be made more complicated by commercial additives, expensive compost bins (I saw a $400 one in a catalog!) or long lists of obscure ingredients that might end up causing the neighbors to call the health department.

[biglover]

11:03 AM on 08/03/2009

Can you tell me what you suggest as good composting foods, etc.??? I am interested.

[sixyfivepercentwater]

12:31 PM on 08/03/2009

Oh my. I would not recommend eating anything directly from the compost bin.

[Austintatious]

08:47 PM on 08/02/2009

This article is absurd.

Those who regularly add to their gardens from the compost they have "created" would not begin to throw all this gargage in their compost piles. While the bulk of these items may decompose if allowed enough time, it is impractical to add all this trash to actively used compost piles. Much of this stuff will take way to long to break down.

This article is likely to cause much more harm than good for those willing to make the effort to work a compost pile . A compost pile should never be considered an alternative to the city dump. Really bad idea!

[lilpeg]

08:20 AM on 08/03/2009

I agree with you that you might not want all the trash in the pile. Some of that stuff is recyclable like the paper and the cereal boxes, at least in our city. But, if you can let your pile sit for a year and regularly turn it ,all the trash might degrade. My worry is about the ink on the paper and the bleaching of the paper (doesn't that process involve dioxins, etc.). I would tend to be more conservative about adding trash.....do it gradually and if the stuff does not breakdown by a convenient time, just start sending it to the dump instead. Half the fun of composting is experimenting!!!!

[weatherwaxx]

07:01 PM on 08/02/2009

Rodale Press has many good books on the subject.

Composting is something that can also be done on a large scale. Toronto, and many other cities in Ontario, have instituted "green bins" that take everything from potato peelings to cat litter. It all goes into a central compost dump that gets hot enough to deal with the bacteria, and the cities save big bucks in waste management.

[mgbgt95]

05:18 AM on 08/03/2009

do you know for a fact that cat litter is compostable. Do you have a source? How about dog poop?
My understanding is that the pathogens are so hardy that they do not die off in the heat cycle. I can't seem to find any definitive answers on the web.
Thanks
[e-mail]

[sixyfivepercentwater]

09:15 AM on 08/03/2009

Some cat litter is compostable, but it must not have any fecal remains in it. Dog and cat feces (or feces from any carnivore) are not compostable. I recently read something in Mother Earth News that advocated composting deer feces, but I wouldn't do that for fear of spreading disease. You're right in thinking that many pathogens are not killed even in the hottest compost pile.

If people would only compost to the extent that they are not throwing out grass clippings or leaves, we'd be miles ahead of where we are now. There's no need to make this complicated.

[madfigs]

12:15 PM on 08/03/2009

Feces (including human feces) is compostable, but it is a more involved/longer process than a compost pile.
Try the "Humanure Handbook" for all the specifics.

I wouldn't do any non-natural cat litter. There's cat litter that's just wood chips and clay and that kind of stuff, then there's a lot that has chemicals in it.

[Trilby]

02:54 PM on 08/02/2009

I am having a really hard time composting just regular garden waste and vegetable waste from my kitchen so I would hesitate to start adding paper and condoms and what-not. Bread and pasta tend to mold and that is gross. Basically my compost stays way too wet no matter what I do, and is full of flies, maggots, and god knows what. I've tried burying some of it in my garden like under squash mounds. I wish I knew what was wrong but I never see my problems dealt with in articles about compost which mostly just sing its praises.

[siralfred]

05:09 PM on 08/02/2009

Actually, lots of shredded paper would most likely help alleviate the wetness. I'm sure you can find what you need to know in a good book. I recommend The Rodale Book of Composting. Good Luck!

[grandma58]

06:00 PM on 08/02/2009

I would not do condoms or anything like them, but I do throw food (like rice) on the lawn instead of the compost, the birds love it.

[drkazmd65]

02:19 PM on 08/02/2009

Good to know,... was already composting more than half the stuff on that list.

Switched over to the recycled newsprint kitty litter last year - and that (plus the residual urine) composts really well. I'll let you all know how the tomatoes & cucumbers grow next year with that added to the base.

[dsws]

01:23 PM on 08/02/2009

You won't get decent compost by just throwing anything on the list onto a heap. A lot of the cardboard has plastic coatings or ink that aren't fully biodegradable. Cooked food often has too much salt. To avoid foul odors or failure to rot promptly and thoroughly, the balance of nitrogen and carbon should be fairly stable and within a certain range.

[skyslimit]

12:09 AM on 08/02/2009

OK What's with the moderation? Seriously? What did I type that was so offensive?

[dsws]

01:15 PM on 08/02/2009

It just takes a long time. They do more moderating than they really have people for. Then there's the disappearing-post "feature": If you post and the page reloads on its own, your post shows up as "awaiting moderation". But if you reload the page yourself, or go to a different page and come back, it forgets that you're the one who posted it, so the post doesn't show up.

[pragmaticdallasite]

12:53 AM on 08/03/2009

Interesting, thanks for that.

[skyslimit]

12:08 AM on 08/02/2009

Just started a red worm compost pile last week, woot woot! I bought 1 lb. of worms which devour 1/2 lb. of food a day. That will be 180 lbs. of food a year that I alone will be preventing from going to landfill. That puts personal responsibility in perspective.

[demimckingwoodtx]

06:58 PM on 08/01/2009

This is so informative for those of us who like to compost most everything.

[AngieMom57]

06:47 PM on 08/01/2009

For those of us that are twenty to thirty years ahead of the common masses this is highly suggested reading:
"The Humanure Handbook: A Guide To Composting Human Manure" by Joseph Jenkins