"Chris Hogg" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 1 Oct 2004 13:55:21 +0100, "Cat"
wrote:

My mother-earth sister, who is into all things green and environmentally
conscious, recently commented that I should not compost news print and
other
printed paper, because of the lead in the ink.
I bring most of my waste printed paper to the recycling centre, but have
used shredded printed paper and newspaper in the compost heap.
What do experienced composters think?

In the past, simple newsprint was merely a suspension of carbon black
(aka lamp black or soot) in mineral oil. That's why it used to come
off on your hands: it wasn't a 'drying' ink ('drying', as in paint
drying). They wanted something really cheap. Including lead would have
been expensive. Modern inks are better quality but I imagine they
still use carbon as the pigment, as it's relatively cheap.
The typeface for newsprint used to be lead-based, so I suppose a
minute amount of lead might have got transferred to the printed paper
during the printing process, but I doubt that that's how moderns
printing is done.

Newsprint paper is made from simple wood-pulp. Glossy papers, such as
used for magazines etc. have coatings of fine white mineral pigments
such as china clay, chalk or titanium dioxide, in order to give a
smoother, whiter surface that is both glossy and better for printing
on.

In the past, many of the pigments in coloured inks use for magazines
were toxic, but so much paper gets recycled these days, and health &
safety considerations are so important, that I doubt very much if any
modern inks are toxic.



Thank you. That's helpful.

--
Cat(h)
The world swirls...