I've read many things saying that cardboard makes terrific bedding.

I was thinking of using cardboard as I have lots of it from everyday things that I've purchased.

However some cardboard has nothing on it really (just a brown box) and some has coatings with pictures like cereal boxes.

If the cardboard has color images on it like a cereal box can it be used as worm bedding?

I would hate to order my first batch or worms and kill them because I did something wrong right off the bat.

I would cut up the cardboard into smaller strips. I wanted to know about the cardboard now so that I could start shredding it well before I get the bin and the worms.

I plan on using primarily carboard and newspaper. I don't have good access to any leaves or grass clippings really since I live in a new housing development but I have plenty of cardboard I can find that would otherwise just get thrown away.

The primary food the worms will get will be banana peels as my son goes through 3 lbs of bananas a week and maybe some coffee grounds when I don't have coffee at work. Any other fruit or veggy waste is fairly small so it won't be much.

Thanks again for the advice now all I need to do is pick up a rubbermaid container and prepare it.

Biggest problem I've had with corigated cardboard is, the time and effort involved in shredding it up. Most personal paper shredders will give up if you feed them too much of this stuff, we have broken two already and we even pealed the cardboard apart before shredding.

If you soak a cardboard box in water overnight, it will rip apart easily and will even make it easy to peal the plastic tape off of it.

as to the glossy paperboard, it will be slower to decompose but it eventually does. The only worry some people have is that we don't know exactly what is in the colored glossy surfaces and worm casting is rather concentraited stuff. If there is anything in those colored inks that could be dangerous, it will be concentraited and who knows what will happen if you use it on your veggie garden. I don't know that I really worry about this. I shred all paper/cardboard and use in in my big compost pile. I don't want to use lots of it for my new worms but I'm not going to toss a whole batch of shredded paper just because one cereal box got into it.

Please, if anyone has info on the regulations for inks on paperboard and their toxicity or lack there of. Tell us. I know that newsprint in North America is safe and nontoxic now even the colored inks but I don't know about other inks.

By the way, shredded paper and cardboard composts great so long as you have a high enough mix of nitrogen to balance it. (if you pee in a bucket of shredded paper/cardboard and then burry it in the middle of your regular compost pile you can really heat it up-ours is often over 150F! of course one you pee in it the paper products are no longer safe for the worms since the salts and heating would be bad for them.)