Composting Phone Books

[JerryCarr]

I routinely compost newspapers and other waste paper, but was wondering about phone books. They tend to have a lot of color pages and color high-light printing on the non-color pages. I know that color pages from the local newspaper are OK, but what about phone books? Thanks for any info.

Cheers,
Jerry

[lquade]

hi jerry at a composting conference i went to they said phone books were fine, soy ink just dont use the spine which has glue.. hope that helps,

[JerryCarr]

Yes, that helps. Thanks.

[Devany]

Do you use a composter or just a big pile that you turn over frequently? I am trying to decide what to do here at our new house.

Aloha au i Hawai`i,
devany

Devany Vickery-Davidson
East Bay Potters
www.eastbaypotters.com

[Carey]

There have been composting classes put on by www.recyclehawaii.org that are offered about once a quarter, & class payment includes an EarthMachine composter...

Currently, there are no classes on their site, but you may want to check back

[JerryCarr]

Devany, I use two small pits in a hillside and a couple of piles, and I turn them all from time to time. It's really easy. I layer vegetative matter with shredded paper and nature does the rest. The earthworms have always just been there without any encouragement.

Cheers,
Jerry

[Devany]

Thanks Jerry & Carey. We only have a one acre lot, but started to pile fallen (rotten)fruit from a lemon tree (I won't let fruit fall and rot, but it was here) in an area that I thought would be far enough from our house to not have fruit flies visiting in the house. When our shredder gets here, I plan to shred our newspaper and other paper to use in it too. In Chciago we had a double barrel rotating composter and worked great... in summer, not at all in the winter. Here with the warm weather I would think that even a pile would compost quickly. I was also wondering why our solid waste station does not have a green container for trimmings/leaves etc. Seems like they could be making mulch or something with it. Since I have no place to put it and don't want to fill the land fill, most of the palm fronds etc. go over the cliff into the ocean. That is at least an organic solution.

Aloha au i Hawai`i,
devany

Devany Vickery-Davidson
East Bay Potters
www.eastbaypotters.com

[lquade]

i have the earthmachine, only 10 dollars if you take the class. i just put stuff in, when it is time to turn, i lift it up let the chickens at it for a couple of days, then shovel it back in for the next go round. it made soil faster than i expected by putting in alot of newpaper as instructed.