I use both newspaper and animal manure in compost for our organic garden. so far so good. newspaper inks are derived from vegetables, but as for other possible toxins in the paper, I don't know and it's a good question.

I THINK that if you are a certified organic producer, newspapers are a no-no, if only because there is no 'paper trail' for ingredients. For those of us who do it for ourselves, I think the soy-based black-inks of today are no problem. Colored inks may or may not be soy-based. The paper in newsprint is as little adulterated as any paper - that's why it's used for printing - it's cheap.

In general, by the time manure containing compost is 2-3 months old, almost all of the "things" fed to the source animals has broken down. If you need or want your compost quicker than that, don't add manure, or only add manure of animals whose feed, etc. you KNOW about.

Newspaper breaks down so fast that it does seem that there are few chemicals in it. I use large amounts of it and loads of cardboard also. I don't use any animal manure anymore now that my soil fertility is high - between compost and my own manure I can maintain a modest-sized garden. For various reasons I like being able to garden vegan.

I would be more concerned about the disease pathogens from manure than the antibiotics and wormers these animals are fed, and they are the reason you should always compost manure before applying it to your garden.
There is nothing in newspaper that would harm your soil, anything of concern is removed in the pulping process and recycled. Newspaper is primarily celulose and some binders to hold the paper together for a time.

I don't take antibiotics or worm medicin, so my manure is clean.

How is crapping in your garden vegan

"How is crapping in your garden vegan"

ROFLMAO....I'm actually crying from laughing so hard.

Newspaper I wonder about, but yeah, generally stick with the black-and-white sections and steer away from the adds.

I once discovered a perfectly unpleasant stack of tied newspapers on a park cleanup day, and not wanting what seemed to be great compost go to waste, I ran back home, fetched my wheelbarrow, and a nice man helped lift the thing into there. Or should I say haul. He reckoned it was about a hundred pounds (but who knows). Anyway, I don't think I've physically ever been so worked in my life taking that home. The wheelbarrow was new and worked well, but there was just one big wheel in the front and I had to balance it. It was really heavy. People wondered what on earth I was doing with that thing, all smelly and sweaty.

Turned out that a good chunk of it was adds and unusable, so my mom said. :( Oh, well. There are still little colored bits of it decomposing in our compost.

I sometimes wonder about bird poo- like, domesticated bird poo. Most of our birds are pretty vegetarian...

I trust manure from local farms - they're too hardscrabble to spend money on fancy pesticides, herbicides etc. I compost it first though. I don't trust stuff from further afield unless I know what the livestock are eating. A friend with a small landscaping business brought in a truckload of horse manure from a race track in town and it came up teeming with thistles.

A Google search of newsprint + dioxins turned up some interesting articles like the one linked. I consider newsprint 'post-industrial' which is where I draw the line, when it comes to mixing something into my soil or compost. I've used a lot of it on paths, though, covered with sawdust.

Here is a link that might be useful: newsprint and dioxins

thanks paul,

i should have done a search on the chemicals in newspaper. i suspected there was more to it than the lead in ink. i go along with you about the line you draw.

I've also been wondering about using coloured newspaper. Unfortunately in my area I'm yet to find a newspaper that has little coloured ink pages. Almost every page has advertisments/pictures in colour. As for the manure, my next door neighbour is an organic farmer and has cattle, chickens plus various fields (corn, potatoes etc) so I think the animal manure may be better than others. So perhaps it's worth looking for animal manure from an organic farmer? I'm new to organic vegetable gardening, so correct me if I'm wrong!

Sarah

It's generally true that manure from organic farms will be better from a chemical contaminant standpoint. If the farmer is using the manure as fertilizer for organic crops, then you can be fairly confident that it's fine for home organic gardening.

The only problem is, in my limited experience organic farmers know the value of their manure, and are likely to ask a good price for it--that is if they have any to spare in the first place.

There's a small horse stable near my house where I can get free manure as long as I dig it myself from the pile. I find the oldest part where the stuff is already composted, so I'm not too worried about chemicals or pathogens. I just made sure that they never spray the pile for flies or anything like that. It's full of worms, so I'm pretty confident using it in my garden.

But if I could find a deal like that at an organic farm, I would probably go there instead...