The compost from my local city is made from yard waste and drywall. I suppose there might be small amounts of pesticide residue in it, but I know many folks who use it in their raised beds and vegetable gardens. It is low in available nitrogen and is advertised as a soil supplement, but I have in fact made beds almost entirely from it. One of my wife's flower beds has about a foot of pure compost, to which I only added some high nitrogen fertilizer. That bed is so lush that it becomes a flower jungle every year because DW loves to plant thickly. The last batch I got, which is supposed to cost $12/yard, was a full pickup load that weighed over a ton. That was somewhere between 3 and 4 yards...still was charged $12. It had somewhat larger chunks of drywall in it, but that is just CaSO4, and is a good additive to loosen clay soils, so I have no real problem with it. The extras I've had in piles always grow weeds eventually, but the stuff seems to have very few viable weed seeds in it as it comes from the recycling center. I have used it as mulch to keep the weeds down. I can't say I've ever had any negative effect from it in my garden. As your location varies, so may your results. Chuck

I found a few more interesting sites regarding newspaper that include the composting council, cornell university, mother earth news and organic gardening... http://mailman.cloudnet.com/pipermail/compost/2002-March/009256.html Toxic inks were mostly ceased for two reasons. 1) worker protection in printing plants. and 2) uniformity of color in multi-newspaper advertisements. Not specifically for environmental protection. But having that effect. All Pb, Cd, and Cr inks were stopped. Color newspaper pages are as safe for use as mulch or compost and the black and white pages. And those are low in Pb with modern printing methods compared to older molten metal systems which included a lot of Pb in the printing surface but not ink excepting contamination of the ink by the easily molten metal. I heard, but have no evidence, that some of the blue ink used in printing cardboard contains Cu even today. But the newspaper ink issue has been settled by both contacting the National Association of newspapers and their printing subgroup, and by analysis of several colored newspaper pages. "Fine Printing" does not necessarily have the same self-imposed limits. I heard that some magazine and wrapping paper is still colored with metal inks. So the answer to the question asked is "metals in newspaper are not increased by the printing process and remain safe for unlimited use as mulch or in producing compost." C:N limits remain just a problematic as ever when one incorporates much newspaper into soils. Essentially the same answer as BioCycle and Organic Gardening printed years ago. These questions come up every gardening season. Hope that helps, Rufus Chaney http://www.css.cornell.edu/compost/faq.html Cornell University states newspaper is safe http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s1-2-21-829,00.html States black and white newspaper is safe http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/2007-05-01/Use-Newspaper-for-Mulch.aspx Mother Earth News also recommends using newspaper.

Newspaper, composted or used as a basis for mulch will not have any adverse affect on what your plants produce. While I have not had to put newspaper in my compost, plenty of other marterials, I have used newspaper as an underlayemt for mulch, to extend what I did have, and found that it helped suppress weed growth, helped maintain soil moisture levels, helped keep the soil cooler, and added needed organic matter to the soil over time. What I have harvested from those planting beds had much better flavor, nothing that could be described as newspaper taste (of course neve having eaten newspaper I'm not sure what it does taste like) then anything from a grocers.

tox - in my experience fungal diseases both in the veg garden and in the lawn seem to be greatest at seasonal turns when the days are reasonably warm -- mid 70's to low 80's -- and the night temps are breaking down into the 50's. nj - I agree with tox. Material from about any reasonably healthy garden plant, clean grass clippings, and anything from the kitchen you are willing to put into your compost. The most common problem for most folks is getting enough brown material for the amount of greens they can produce from their kitchen in an ongoing basis, let alone fresh grass clippings. On the lawn treatments, the two big ones for compost and plant health are herbicides and fungicides. The issue on herbicides is carryover via your compost to your garden and subsequent killing of your plants. The transfer to the compost comes via amounts that have been taken up or absorbed by the plants treated. Most of the common herbicides available to the home owner work via foliar absorption. Only a few, mostly atrazine and Image, work primarily through translocation from the soil. If you're doing the application with common homeowner retail herbicides that you bought from someplace like HD, then they will decompose to very low residual levels under any reasonable composting conditions. There is a risk, but it is very small. To minimize that risk I suggest that after application of any herbicide you wait until after 4 regular mowings of 1/3rd grass height or greater. After that the residual in the grass should be low enough that even with marginal composting you should be without issue. Fungicides present a different threat, and that is to the microbial community that is working in your compost. Honestly, I don't have a good feel for how long they can persist and at what levels in grass clippings. It would probably depend on whether they work topically or systemically. I don't think there is much data on this - just a few specific lab studies on or in media to determine susceptibility. I've not heard of it ever being an actual problem. Commonly available insecticides generally aren't a concern to plant or compost health, but they could pose a risk if they are systemic in action and transfer through the compost. Again, this is one of those I don't really know about, and I don't think there is much data on that either. A final word of caution - all present a risk from handling treated materials. My SWAG is that grass clippings from any homeowner treated lawn would be safe to handle and compost after the 4th mowing, provided that the materials were used in accordance with the label instructions. After all that on grass clipping, I am not a fan of composting them. I've done it in the past, but gave it up several decades ago. The best place for those grass clippings is right back on the lawn from where they came. You lawn will benefit from tremendously over time from mulch mowing and allowing the clippings to decompose in place, providing organic matter for the soil beneath the surface. That also eliminates all the risk of lawn chemical transfer to your compost system.