Bob F wrote:
....
Years ago I contacted my local paper and asked. They assured me that
their ink was safe. It couldn't hurt to ask.

based upon my experience all inks other than
carbon black and soy oil based have some
interesting things in them i'd rather avoid, but
at times i will still shred a small amount of
colored glossy inserts by accident and let the
worms eat those anyways. i'm concerned though
that this might not be the best thing over the
really long term so i'm being more careful now.

in my experiments with different glossy papers
and various colored inks i saw the worms actually
sucking the ink off the paper as if they were
attracted to it (perhaps it registered as a salt
or flavoring that they liked i'm not sure what -
perhaps it was melon flavored (they really like
melon rinds)).

since some papers and cardboards can be coated
with plastic (or have a layer of plastic hidden
between layers of paper) it can be a real mess
if you happen to shred that and then use it in
your composting system (yes i have had this happen
- years later i'm still picking pieces of plastic
out of some gardens).


songbird