Hi bibbus,somtimes it's easy to get overwhelmed by too much information so you must hear my spiel first. LOL
I heard and they said are a couple of guys who often lie and pass along unreliable information. IMO,gardening in general,organic in piticular offers more in the way of thereapy and relaxaition than savings or sustinance but some people want us to wring our hands,NOT. And health of course which is basicly what your question is about,things we should avoid in food. All the RELIABLY information I have found says inks and glues in normal consumer goods are safe. Specialized ink or glue may or may not be safe so we should discard the rare items in that catigory. Specialized glue or ink for instance might be one or more of water,heat,uv,chemical resistant to a much higer degree than required for every day use. Chances of seeing such is not likly unless dumpster diving at industrial plants. Nothing bad comes in the mail or super market. Some paper and cardboard is moderatly resistant to moisture but will compost,just slower. If you want to avoid slow to compost as a matter of convenience , dip it in water. The degree it wets is a very good indicator of how long it takes to rot,yes rot,that is compost. White bags,most colored paper,shirt boxes and some office printer paper is slower than news paper,brown corigated cardboard,brown paper bags and paper towels. The classic "I heard,they said" item is towels containing clorine. Only if they are pulled from the factory container wet like wet wipes,and you can bet the manufacture with make a big deal of the fact to inhance marketability.

Personally, I wouldn't avoid anything that you mentioned. The composting process - if done correctly - goes a very long way in neutralizing the effect of so-called contaminates. And many of these additives are overstated, both in their concentrations and in their possible harmfulness.

FWIW, most newspaper inks are soy-based and most cardboard glues are starch-based (from plant materials) so any negative impact from these is pretty much non-existent. The amount of chemicals potentially contained in either white paper bags or paper towels (chlorine bleach) is not enough to cause concern - unless you are adding these ingredients by the ton - and will be adequately addressed by a thorough composting process.

Sometimes we get so rapt in the organic concept we let details overwhelm us. Compost is considered the great neutralizer - it breaks virtually anything down into its primary components and renders much of what was considered a chemical contamination into a harmless end product. Compost has long been applied to hazardous waste sites and contaminated soils to neutralize and remediate any problems. Just follow a good hot composting process and you should be fine.

Chlorine bleach has been the product used to bleach woo pulp to make white paper for years and because wood pulp is naturally brown any white paper you have will have been bleached, although a method using hydrogen peroxide is coming into more use today.
While the pulp is run through the bleaching process it is also rinsed to remove that chlorine bleach since it could interfere with some of the other materials tht make up paper, clays, adhesives, dyes, etc. With paper towels your concern should not be the chlorine bleach but the additives that help hold the paper towels together when wet.
I would not be concerned about composting any of the products you have listed.

Same questions has ran past my mind and my answers- thoughts and feelings...

Ink usually is poison... can you eat a pen of ink without getting ill or ending up dead?

If I were to use cardboard... I DEFINEATLY will not add the corner parts with the glue on it. Why? Can you eat glue for dinner and not get sick or end up dead? There's all types of glue out there. Some glue is very toxic. Rolls of toilet paper are glued as they twirl around.

I don't even find recycled paper safe... after all it was mostly recycled from bleached and chemical added papers.

Coffee is a huge one on my mind with folks adding regular major known brands to their otherwise all raw organic and heirloom compost. Coffee is one of the biggest most alarming amount of pesticides added!!! Very few people buy organic coffee which is pretty expensive.

I'm still in novice stage of learning about composting.... I've read over time pesticide foods can rid the pesticides in composting. I just don't believe everything I hear.

I plan to add what mother earth gives naturally to my compost. At least where as best as I can. But I'm still listening and learning.

This post was edited by flo9 on Tue, Oct 15, 13 at 2:36

Oh... and house plants I often hear to add too. Well, everything I've read about eating plants sold at major stores can cost you your life!!! Due to pesticides!!!! It MUST be organically grown or else you might die. House plants are usually sprayed with toxins used on grass and weed killers.

yeah.... so house plants I will never add to a compost pile... unless I know it is organically grown or something I found in the wild and know to be safe.

Gardengal.... I may appear too technical on this... but regarding soy based inks...there's a lot of opinions if soy is safe or not... I happen to ultimately believe it is a mild to severe poison for humans and also believe every human s allergic to it but only some of us show more symptoms than others.
Also I highly doubt any paper company would spend the extra money on organic soy for inking. But even organic soy is harmful to our bodies.

This soy subject tends to stir anger with some people... it's really ironic. I fully upmost support vegan eating.... but absolutely not soy products. I am just going to leave it with this. ;)

Practically every part of an oleander is toxic to humans...to the extent of death if you eat a plant. You'll be puking up your guts and near death before you get through eating a whole plant, realistically.

...yet, if you compost 100 oleanders you'll be left with good quality harmless compost. Heck, if it's aged enough you can eat it...but that's not advised because it wouldn't taste very good even if it probably won't make you sick.

There's a couple things to consider...1- these things you're composting break down into other things, most of them harmless... 2- dilution effect...when you have some glue on a few dozen paper towel rolls mixed in 100x+ more plant/food/etc waste, it's not much to worry about if there's anything to worry about to begin with.

That said, if you feel like cutting the glue parts off of boxes or not composting the toilet rolls because of glue residue...whatever...it's a rather insignificant contribution to a pile anyway.

This is before we get into the issue that we're making soil here...and just because something is in a soil doesn't mean it's going to be in a plant...plants just don't work that way. They have many biological mechanisms built into them that work quite well in keeping a lot of things they don't want out of their tissues (especially fruiting parts of plants).

Seriously, we're making soil to grow things in...not to eat the soil. Plants are not sponges...chemicals (natural or man made) rarely stay stable. Nature...biological systems...acts on things to break them down. It's how compost works to begin with.

This post was edited by nc-crn on Tue, Oct 15, 13 at 5:02

Agreed nc-crn. Also, fwiw, according to Steve Solomon's "Organic Gardener's Composting" the glue is a high source of nitrogen.

I would not worry about non organic coffee grounds......the pesticides are sprayed on the fruit and does not reach the bean which is inside the fruit. Also the beans go through a fermentation process and then are ground and roasted then they are heated once more to make the actual coffee. all of these processes would lead to the breakdown of the pesticide.

Is there any wonder why we hear so many say"I tried going organic and found it so complicated I just can't injoy gardening like that"? 95% of the things you hear can not be proven so we have to apply common sense and not get bogged down. I can however prove that if you eat glue you will die. When i was in elementry school it was common for kids to eat glue. well guess what,many have already died and there is no question the remainder will also. As far as what go's into compost being passed into food grown in it. Can you emagine the results of eating animal feces that are so prized as compost material? Come to think of it,I suppose using composted manure in the veggi garden has similarities to eating glue.

OMG!!! People, you are overthinking this and taking it to the extreme. Reread nc-crn and my posts again. What goes into a compost operation is NOT what comes out!!

Yes, it does make a difference what you add to a compost but use some common sense!! Pen ink is not the same as publishing ink. Soy is nontoxic, plain and simple. If - and that's a very big if - one is sensitive or allergic to soy, that is a totally different situation.......I'm sure any given person can be allergic to any given substance from time to time. But soy has been consumed for eons by many of the world's peoples without issue and is a common ingredient in an amazing volume of prepared foodstuffs.

And I can't count the number of times one hears stories about folks eating paste and glue, specially small kids :-) Again, cardboard glue is starch based - meaning it is derived from common food products like the tubers, roots and seeds of plants such as maize, potatoes, wheat, rice and tapioca. Totally and completely harmless!!. And eating houseplants may be hazardous because the plants themselves are toxic. Regardless of what type of pesticide they may or may not be treated with, one would have to consume it in vastly larger quantities that what might be sprayed on the foliage to have any sort of issues. And that is before any composting that will breakdown both the pesticides AND the plant toxins (which are most likely of much greater concern to one's well-being than any pesticide!).

Once again - composting breaks down any organic (as in carbon-based) and a great many non-organic compounds into their basic elements and renders them harmless. Harmless....get it??

And even if it doesn't, in order to actually be exposed, those toxins have to be taken up by the parts of the plant you eat, AND absorbed into your system after eating, *in sufficient quantities* to be toxic.

In other words, there are so many steps where stuff is lost that tiny amounts going into the compost are insignificant.

I'm not advocating putting all kinds of junk in your compost, but there has to be a line drawn somewhere. I don't dump used motor oil in there, but I will put in cardboard with a little glue on it or newsprint.

From my view as a chemist, and as one who adheres as much as possible to organic gardening principles, I see no problems or issues with composting any of the wood/paper products in the OP list and using the resultant compost for organic gardening. Others may differ. There is no uniform standard for the home organic gardener. Rather, it is a matter of principle and personal choice.

- white papers (anything not natural brown) were all prepared with bleached wood pulp; the bleach was well removed in the process. The base paper products are pretty clean, although some may be coated for various purposes (texture, ink absorption, gloss, moisture resistance, etc). If designed for consumer contact or food contact, I see no problems with using it in compost for organic gardening.

- printing inks -- the historic concern was with heavy metals that were used as the pigments. Those are basically gone from consumer applications.

- corrugated cardboards, as gardengal noted, are made with starch-based adhesives. They may be printed or paraffin coated for moisture resistance. Either way, no problem

- soy (and other food allergens) -- taken on the whole, there are many food-related allergies to vegetable products, including grains, legumes, etc. Typically those are a response to a specific protein in the offending food. Those proteins will be rapidly broken down in a well operated composting operation.

In general, if it would be safe to eat or swallow, or for direct food contact, or for direct consumer contact, it should be fine for composting for organic gardening. That includes all food waste. The USDA guidelines for their NOP consider all "food waste" as acceptable for organic certification.

Thank you all. My compost will be more robust this year and there will be fewer things in the landfill! I'm also much less squeamish about "organic" since there is no telling how many things we eat or come into contact with that we don't know is harmful. Fortunately our bodies were created strong if we take reasonably good care of them. Thanks again!

If it's suitable for your compost, by your preferences or "rules", I would much rather see it get used via composting than go into any landfill.

Enjoy!

Happy composting and keep us posted on your progress.

Well, today I took down one of my summer compost piles and sifted out the sticks. It was beautiful!! Hopefully this week I can put it around some of my plants or save it for a few months to put on my veggie beds. But thanks to your advice I don't have to separate my compost piles in to ones with cardboard and paper and ones with only leaves for the "browns." I have a bag of shredded copy paper ready to add when I have enough greens to mix with it. And I won't feel nervous about it. I like peaceful gardening!

Sometimes I could take organic zealots by the shoulders and SHAKE them. The fear and uincertainty they drive into people!! Are we forgetting what composting is? It's the biodegrading of green and brown material, all of which was once living in the ground -- or coming out of a horse or cow. What you put into it isn't what you get out of it. Decomposer organisms eat it, metabolize it and excrete it, in a different form than when you added it.

Compost, is BY NATURE, organic. The term "organic" gardening actually originated ages ago when people discovered that recycling old plant material and manures into the farm fields was good for soil fertility. "Organic gardening" simply meant adding organic material into the soil.

Then the term was co-opted (sadly) by the people who won't even use Bt on caterpillars because they don't want to use "chemicals", forgetting of course, that Bt is organic, if nothing else.

My mom grew up on a farm in Northern Michigan. She was the original recycler and she always had a gigantic compost pile that my dad named "Jimmy Hoffa". They never stopped to wonder what was used to process the paper that went into it or nitpicked about every scrap that would be composted. They foung stuff in, never turned it, and once a year, they got great compost out of it.

They also lived to 88 and 90 years of age.

Gardengal is SO RIGHT. Stop over thinking this! Look at the oil of a forest floor. It's wonderful, isn't it? That's because the trees and forest vegetation compost themselves, with no intervention by overly picky human beings. Come on, think about it. Isn't it ironic that people get so anal retentive about COMPOST?

"Organic" does have a specific meaning in context and people do have the right to follow organic procedures if they so choose. Denigrating those people helps not at all.

Lloyd

Lloyd, you have a point :-) However, so does Mulchmama. There are zealots out there who think everyone should follow their very strict and somewhat narrow views and then there are those that espouse blatantly inaccurate information.....like "toxic" soy :-)) It does no one any favors to condone these extremists or to allow the misinformation they are so eager in spreading to persist unchallenged.

And its also a matter of understanding the principles of composting and what the finished product is likely to be. Essentially anything that is not plastic, metal or derived primarily from petrochemicals can (not necessarily 'should') be composted - that is, if it decomposes, it can be composted. And the output is considered organic for all but the most stringent organic farming standards. And even those are opened up provided certain testing of the 'finished' compost is achieved.

Oddly enough, it often seems those who are most well-informed about the processes, practices and the definitions are also some of the most broad thinking and moderate in their approach. As one of my hort professors used to say: " a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" !

Not all organic proponents are zealots, in fact I suspect very few are. But just like in politics, the zealots are sometimes the most vocal.

I have two words, picloram and clopyralid. Even a non-organic person such as myself am scared of these. Sodium is also "organic" but no one with any kind of composting knowledge would advocate using large quantities of this stuff in any composting operation. The POV 'that as long as stuff gets composted it's okay to use in composting' is false. There will always be extenuating circumstances that could come into play. Reasonable people know this.

Lloyd

I pretty much agree with Lloyd. "Organic", as it is applied to agriculture, home gardening and food in general, is a term that has been widely used, abused and misused. Thanks to the USDA it now has specific meaning for commercial purposes for those who wish to label food products they sell as organic. But that's about it. After that it is a general concept that guides practice and process. Once it is understood it is a matter of personal preference of what is embraced and practiced as "organic". There is no absolute right or wrong, just a difference. Someone wants to be vocal and take a position, that's their position, and their's alone. There are no judges for the home grower or gardener. Each must decide for themselves.

The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements defines organic agriculture as, " a production system that sustains the health of soils, ecosystems and people. It relies on ecological processes, biodiversity and cycles adapted to local conditions, rather than the use of inputs with adverse effects. Organic Agriculture combines tradition, innovation and science to benefit the shared environment and promote fair relationships and a good quality of life for all involved."

There is little more natural than crude oil, straight from the ground. The same can be said for sodium chloride (salt) either mined as a solid, or recovered from brine or seawater by evaporation. Both are abundant, natural resources where I live. But as amendments for your soil or additions to your compost, they are both quite destructive. As inputs for agriculture or gardening, the are few things that would have more adverse effects, and as a result be entirely inconsistent with the fundamental foundation and premise of organic gardening.

Understand the fundamental premise, then do what makes sense.