If you receive pachages you can save the padding paper that is sometimes included. not sure if corrugated cardboard is an ok sub.

But more to your point newsprint was a handy thing to have available for many projects. In college we dried our hand wash sweaters on thick layers—- never noticed any print transfer but maybe they were all navy blue shetland wool with monograms?:)

eta https://whospilled.com/fire-starter/cardboard

Every supermarket in the world has a bin full of their advertising flyers as you enter and leave. I grab a handful each trip.

You can buy a bundle of ”newsprint” at Home Depot in the packing department. Much cheaper than the NYT!

ETA: America’s Test Kitchen says to use cardboard egg cartons torn into 4” pieces. I still see cardboard egg cartons from time to time.

Another site suggested paper towels twisted tightly and covered in cooking oil

A grilling forum had a lot of folks who love Weber parafin starter cubes. 🤔

Ricky, they are mostly colored ink. I always just used black ink.

FWIW, this is from Weber’s message board.

https://tvwbb.com/threads/ill-never-use-newspaper-in-the-chimney-again.45418/

There's no difference between black and multi-colored newsprint. By the time your coals are not, the ink is in the stratosphere.

I use the plain (not printed) newsprint paper that comes in packaging, no oil. I fold it up and save it. I had a couple of chimney starters that worked fine that way, but one died and the other went on vacation, so I had to buy a new one. The Kingsford chimney starter, chosen mostly for a ridiculously cheap price (maybe loss leader or overstock price), since they're all rated well. That starter made all the difference! It is so fast and the charcoal is so hot—and it holds so much! (but will do less just as well)--that I had to amend my firestarting timing. Though, I think any paper would work fine. On Chloebud's linked Weber thread, they mention corrogated cardboard. When I read that, I was sceptical, but I've realized that I was thinking about the old (returned from vacation) chimney. I think you could probably put anything flamable in the Kingsford chimney and it would work. The issue is more what kinds of molecules are you releasing.

Fortunately, we still get a newspaper.

Not sure I believe that colored inks won't leave any residue on your charcoal as they burn. And if anyone is concerned about that, I think the makeup of the charcoal itself needs to be considered as well.

And yes - plain paper used in packaging will work fine and is pretty easy to come by these days in any place you'd find cardboard boxes.

There are a couple of free local weekly papers delivered to residents, so we always have some newsprint, even tho we no longer get a regular paper.

And in a pinch, how about plain white printer paper?

Printer paper is too heavy. Paper towel with a little cooking oil works just fine. And as far as the charcoal goes, I ONLY use natural lump or Kingsford competition briquettes. They have no clay fillers and are all natural as well.

My charcoal is natural wood, mostly raw (untreated) waste wood from industry, made into charcoal.

Carol, I'm with you on the inks. I've worked too much with inks and dyes to feel sanguine about breathing them, even discharged and burnt. Same with printer's ink. I stopped getting a paper newspaper because I'm very allergic to the soy ink they used nowadays. It's likely more benign than the old ink, but I wasnt allergic to the old. Given all that, however, the amount of paper burnt to start a fire, even if everyone in the neighborhood is barbecuing at the same time, is negligible in terms pof pollutants. It's the wood/charcoal—even the most ”natural” and unchemicalled—that's the problem.

cotton balls soaked in cooking oil

I always use a blowtorch under the charcoal starter. No need to use paper.

dcarch

We’re setting up our Weber kettle for tonight. It made me wonder if you could cut pieces from the charcoal bag itself to light the chimney.

I use Royal Oak exclusively in my smoker, but it doesn't work as well in the Weber kettle. For high heat, fast cooking, I use Kingsford Competition briquettes. All natural as well.

“The Weber starter cubes sound nice, but the newspaper keeps my charcoal from falling through the bottom of the chimney.”

Sherry, our chimney has a grate at the bottom the charcoal sits on to prevent that.

What brand is your chimney? Mine is Weber and does have a shelf for the charcoal, but it only a very open wire grid.

I would have said Weber but DH says it’s Kingsford. He also said every charcoal chimney we’ve ever bought has some kind of grate at the bottom that’s held the charcoal in place.

Does yours look like this one from Weber? This grate would definitely secure our charcoal.

Yes, that is it, but the lump I use Royal Oak, (see above) has a lot of small pieces and those fall through. It would work with briquettes, but I like the lump.

Our chimney starters look like the one chloe shared.

And we buy this from Publix:

Not sure if this is true everywhere, but if you must have newsprint, and don't have any from shipping packaging, are there any local free newsprint papers offered at businesses/libraries? I see them at both places around here - stuff like Auto Trader, entertainment weeklies, or 'penny savers'.

And printer paper comes in different weights - some are quite thin.

I don’t think we’ve ever used that brand, but I understand if there are small pieces. We have a large Weber kettle and small Weber Smokey Joe. We also have a Weber gas grill but DH prefers charcoal. We’ve pretty much used Kingsford briquets for years.

Maybe a piece of wire screen from a hardware store would help…? It might have to be replaced periodically.

We still get a newspaper, but it now comes 3 or 4 days a week (for the same full week subscription price) and our mail carrier brings it with our mail. No more paper boy and not for years. DH reads it fully, every page, I mostly read our local news online although its not the best website ever, somewhat abbreviated news.

Our fireplace and grill are gas. I save the papers to share with a nephew who has a wood burning fireplace insert, and find other uses for them myself too. If the stack becomes too unwieldy it goes into the recycle can occasionally. I like food cooked over wood or briquets but its been years since we've done that. We grill all year around even using it to sear meats that will be placed in my oven, and DH wants it fast and easy. :(

morz8, we still get a daily paper DH enjoys, including right now. Plenty of newspaper for us, too. We’re in SoCal and grill year round, and often close to daily. We keep a stack of newspaper for grilling in a garage cabinet. The rest goes in recycle.

I don't use charcoal, so I don't know if this would work, but I use cut up egg cartons to start my woodstove fire. They light easily, but don't burn too quickly, so they are perfect. Seems the charcoal would nest nicely in a couple of the cups.

The brown paper grocery bags (that your grocery store may still use instead of plastic bags) should work?

I am trying to figure out how to give away my once-read New York Times each day, partly to reduce my recycling volume and partly because someone else may want to read it.

If you have a central location to take recycling, I always find newspapers by the heaps in the bins. Just a thought.

“The brown paper grocery bags (that your grocery store may still use instead of plastic bags) should work?

I was actually thinking about that, too. Or, you could always buy a pack of brown paper lunch bags to cut/tear up for lighting. Should last pretty long.

This is probably too much monkeying around for both people but some of the things I have done and use for starting the chimney for lump charcoal:

Take two toilet tissue cardboard inserts and insert one into another. It doesn’t matter if you have to crush the inner one.

Outdoors or in a double boiler (carefully watched because paraffin in highly flammable) melt down the leftovers from pure paraffin candles. With a pair of tongs you can dip the doubled walled toilet tissue cardboard in the melted paraffin and then said it aside to cool. (You can also try using just the untreated doubled cardboard tubes. There are also ready-made paraffin starter blocks on the market.

These paraffin-coated cardboard containers can be used for starting a bunch of charcoal lumps, or they can be used to make homemade “tick tubes.“ [For the tick tubes you can take a bunch of quilting scraps or sewing scraps mixed in with the appropriate amount and concentration of permethrin (or use Sawyer’s spray). Stuff the treated scraps of cotton into the paraffin coated toilet tissue cardboards (again you want to use one squished into the other). You can put these homemade tick tubes into your wood piles or stones also whatever out of sight and hopefully chipmunks end white footed mice or deer mice will use that material for nesting and it will kill the young deer ticks.

CAVEAT: The paraffin coated cardboard is flammable and must be stored responsibly in a safe place.

Used vegetable oil can be poured onto the lump charcoal and ignited without using the starter chimney.

As dcarch pointed out, you can also start the lump charcoal with a propane torch.

The ad flyers from Publix worked great. There ARE NO newspapers in anywhere in Alabama.Not regular papers and not the ad papers.

Sherry, I'm curious. Is there a law for reducing paper waste, of did they all just decide to quit?

toilet paper, paper towel or wrapping paper tubes

Most in the state are owned by the same company now and just quit. They got smaller and smaller first. Then, they went to three days a week. Then just quit.

I picked up Publix ads at the store the other day and they are working fine.

Thanks, Sherry. I'm so sorry to hear it. Glad the ad sheets are working for your fires, but sorry for Alabama for the loss of the papers.

It is not just Alabama, it is the entire country. At the risk of getting this entire thread deleted, I grew up with print and broad cast news that were obsessed about checking all sources and showing all sides. The newspaper did NOT print anything until they had researched. Reportered would of died before posting anything they had not checked.and verified.

Now it is all Headline new and is all bout the ratings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwgJgTL5JmE