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15 Unusual Items you can Compost

15 Unusual Items you can Compost


Composting is a great way to reduce household waste by around 50 percent and to provide your garden with essential nutrients

Along with your usual leftover vegetable and fruit scraps, anything plant based can be added to compost, including:



Used Paper Napkins

Newspaper 

Paper Egg Cartons

Pencil Shavings

Old Clothing, cut up

Stale Breads

Toothpicks

Facial Tissues

Bills and other documents

Sticky notes

Crumbs off counters and floors

Old Jelly and Jam

Paddlepop sticks

Paper Bags

Flowers





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Science Notes

Composting is living system with many bacteria, fungi and other critters. Compost needs to be aerated every 10 to 15 days to help ensure that the carbon: oxygen balance is right.

Your compost needs a balance between wet and dry substances so the great thing about adding some of the items here is that you are adding dry matter to your food scraps.

Related Tip

While stale bread or crusts can happily go into your compost, think about eating it instead! Stale bread makes excellent breadcrumbs. Just freeze it until you need it and then toss it in  your food processor or blender. See Your Compost Bin to get more information on what you can put in your compost bin.>