On Jul 10, 12:58*pm, "Spider" wrote:
"Terry Pinnell" wrote in message

...

A friend told me recently that you shouldn't put banana skins into the
compost box, as they take many years to degrade. Was he correct
please? We've been including them for a long time and I'm sure we've
not seen any recognisable ex-bananas in our resultant compost.

[Compostible? Compostable? My OED doesn't tell me.]

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

It's compostable, Terry. *Easy to remember: "able to compost".
Yes, of course you can compost bananas. *I've been doing it for years and
never (in 27 years) had a problem. *You can also bury them under flowering
trees or shrubs, as they're very high in potash.

If you want to worry that they've been sprayed with something noxious, then
the argument that they take a long time to break down negates itself, as the
noxious substance would also have degraded in that time. *However, I find,
as you do, that there's so recognisable skin left after a normal (cold)
composting period.

Some people just need something to worry about. *Somehow, composting and
neurosis don't fit together very well. *Composters are, by nature,
down-to-earth people.

I like that last expression, it is so litterally true !
There are lots of weird memes about what you should or shouldn't
compost, though. One which gave me a great giggle was someone dear to
me telling me how he never put stale bread in the compost bin, because
bread mould is antibiotic (penicillin blah blah blah). All our bits
of heel, or crust that do not get consumed by us under some other
guise go into our compost heap, which should therefore theoretically
be sterile.

Cat(h)