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Soil, Compost & Mulch

Great cardboard debate: to peel or not to peel

15 years ago

As far as using colored boxes in composting, such as cereal boxes, pasta and rice boxes, etc.....so you peel away the colored portion and just use the brown or gray backing, or do you compost the whole boxes (shredded up, of course)? I would love to hear what YOU do and why!

Sassy (gammie to two beautiful girls)

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Comments (6)

kqcrna
15 years ago
Are you kidding me? Peel all my Bud Light boxes? Someone actually does this? No way. I'm not that much of a purist. Cardboard goes in as is.

Karen
kyndall_surae
Original Author
15 years ago
Ahhhhh, Bud Light. Makes your garden happy, huh? With 2 girls around, mine gets more Cheerios and Mac and Cheese boxes, but the occasional beer carton my get "snuck" in there :) Seriously, I just wondered if thinning the cardboard a little would help it break down better. I always cut the boxes apart and let the older girly draw pics with her colored pencils on the backs, then she proudly brings them back to me to compost:)
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the peel will decompose. i mainly find this happening with orange peels. banana peels often decompose faster and get eaten more since it's mushy and sweeter. the behavior i would have to say normal i got my worms a week ago no problems with my worm bin besides heating up but i used cardboard and a lot of newspaper and all the worms love to migrate to the bottom portion of the bin. most likely they are eating food down their that i put during the first feeding. but when i open up the bin at night they are all on the top portions all crawling on eachother on the sides like they are mating. i highly doubt they are making as they do this daily since i got them. they are not trying to crawl out they just are at the surface doing idk. if they are not trying to crawl out i highly doubt their is a problem. i have seen countless problems from too wet bedding, over feeding, not enough air,etc.. and from all those video's the worms tried to crawl out. the only logical reason i can think of why my worms go in during the day and come out at night is because i live in Hawaii and it's hot as hell the past week thus they stay in the bottom to cool down. at night it's less hot and so they come up. my bin isn't that deep it's only about 6-7 inches deep so they will move throughout the entire bin since it's not too deep for them and mine is a little clumpy and matted from the paper but they don't seem to mind
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Amazing how many different recipes for tuna salad sandwiches there are! My family has always added HB eggs to it. A few times I have omitted them when I was in a hurry or didn't have any eggs. We always alo use Miracle Whip---I usually replace mayo in recipes with Miracle Whip anyway. My Grandma and Mom always added chopped sweet pickles but I usually use sweet relish instead. We also use the finely diced onion, though I like my onion pieces a little less fine. If I have celery on hand, I add chopped celery too. I always buy tuna in oil but my Significant Other buys it in water. My SO adds just a little squirt of plain yellow mustard to tuna salad too. This recipe is traditional in the sense that it has been passed down through my family since before 1900. Some of the things I've read here, I will try---A little pressed garlic sounds like a nice addition, I'd probably like a pinch of dill as well, and a dab of horseradish might be interesting. Most of the rest of the suggesred ingredients would be a real turn-off. We always serve it on white bread too.
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Kimmsr
15 years ago
The inks used on food packaging must be non toxic so there is no need to peel the packaging to eliminate the printed portion.
lynxe
15 years ago
The only stuff I remove from cardboard boxes and cartons: tapes, staples, plastic. (I've occasionally brought home boxes from food stores that were lined with plastic.) And I peel off cardboard with writing on it in inks and markers. Probably, given how small the proportion of inks to total cardboard, that doesn't matter all that much. But it's easy to do, so I do it.
ajpa
15 years ago
I peel.
kyndall_surae
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks for all the replies. This is what I do (most of the time). On things like cereal boxes, pasta boxes, etc, I initially cut the boxes apart at all the seams. I give the larger flat pieces to my 6 y/o GD for her artwork. The narrow edge strips, tops and bottoms, get torn up and tossed into the compost. Then, after she has finished her drawing, she gives the big pieces back to me, and I peel them down, giving her more surface area to draw and doodle on. When she is finished, then she gets to cut them into strips, practicing her cutting skills. Then off to the compost they go. So we are reusing, then recycling. She's happy, I'm happy, and eventually the compost is happy. A good overall learning experience for her, plus it gets her more involved in the composting efforts.

Sassy

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