Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Add hair to a compost pile
Question: Is it ok to add hair to a compost pile?
I'm talking about dog hair, cat hair, and human hair. Has anyone done it? Does anyone have cites about it? Thanks, Dick -- Richard D. Adams Ellicott City, MD |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Add hair to a compost pile
|
#3
|
|||
|
|||
Add hair to a compost pile
|
#5
|
|||
|
|||
Add hair to a compost pile
Janet wrote in
: In article , says... Question: Is it ok to add hair to a compost pile? I'm talking about dog hair, cat hair, and human hair. Has anyone done it? Yes, I always put pet hair in the bin I used to collect sacks of human whenever I went to the hairdresser (I've given that up now that the chemical and dye content is so high). I still do collect sacks of sheep wool waste from the shearing shed floor, makes great compost. Composting wool was an old North-country gardeners practice when gardeners used to collect shoddy from the woollen mills. Janet Janet, As far as I know shoddy is recycled wool. How can that be because in the mills it was freshly woven so not recycled. Can you help me with this strange request? Baz |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
Add hair to a compost pile
Chris Hogg wrote in
: On Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:40:31 GMT, Baz wrote: My wife has in the past done her own spinning and knitting. She would buy a whole unwashed fleece from a local shall-holder with a few rare-breed sheep when they are shorn. A certain proportion of the fleece is unuseable, as being too matted or filthy, particularly the bits around the sheep's rear end, and has to be discarded. I imagine the same sort of thing happens with woollen mills. She knows it as breech wool, but shoddy is inferior wool and the term would probably be equally applicable. Understood, Sort of. Thanks Chris. Baz |
#7
|
|||
|
|||
Add hair to a compost pile
In article ,
says... Janet wrote in : In article , says... Question: Is it ok to add hair to a compost pile? I'm talking about dog hair, cat hair, and human hair. Has anyone done it? Yes, I always put pet hair in the bin I used to collect sacks of human whenever I went to the hairdresser (I've given that up now that the chemical and dye content is so high). I still do collect sacks of sheep wool waste from the shearing shed floor, makes great compost. Composting wool was an old North-country gardeners practice when gardeners used to collect shoddy from the woollen mills. Janet Janet, As far as I know shoddy is recycled wool. How can that be because in the mills it was freshly woven so not recycled. Can you help me with this strange request? Not all the mills were weaving; some were spinning, and not all the spinning mills used new wool. They also recycled old wool garments and spun the fibre into shoddy, a cheaper yarn. Which is why the word shoddy now means lower quality. IIRC the Yorshire rhubarb industry used lots of shoddy. Janet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossar..._manufacturing Shoddy Recycled or remanufactured wool. Historically generated from loosely woven materials. Benjamin Law invented shoddy and mungo, as such, in England in 1813. He was the first to organise, on a larger scale, the activity of taking old clothes and grinding them down into a fibrous state that could be re-spun into yarn. The shoddy industry was centred on the towns of Batley, Morley, Dewsbury and Ossett in West Yorkshire, and concentrated on the recovery of wool from rags. The importance of the industry can be gauged by the fact that even in 1860 the town of Batley was producing over 7000 tonnes of shoddy. At the time there were 80 firms employing a total of 550 people sorting the rags. These were then sold to shoddy manufacturers of which there were about 130 in the West Riding. |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
Add hair to a compost pile
On 31/01/2012 04:47, Dick Adams wrote:
Question: Is it ok to add hair to a compost pile? I'm talking about dog hair, cat hair, and human hair. Has anyone done it? Does anyone have cites about it? Thanks, Dick -- Richard D. Adams Ellicott City, MD We put hair out in chicken wire bags, hung from trees. Birds take it for nesting. Personally, I wouldn't want to put hair in the compost bin. I doubt it would do any harm, but it doesn't break down well. -- Spider from high ground in SE London gardening on clay |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
Add hair to a compost pile
|
#10
|
|||
|
|||
What is it that's worrying you about putting it on the compost heap?
__________________
getstats - A society in which our lives and choices are enriched by an understanding of statistics. Go to www.getstats.org.uk for more information |
#11
|
|||
|
|||
Add hair to a compost pile
On 2012-01-31, Dick Adams wrote:
Question: Is it ok to add hair to a compost pile? I'm talking about dog hair, cat hair, and human hair. Has anyone done it? Does anyone have cites about it? I can't imagine why not. If I had my hair cut at home, I'd certainly throw it in: organic material, without much moisture. |
#12
|
|||
|
|||
Add hair to a compost pile
"Dick Adams" wrote in message ... Question: Is it ok to add hair to a compost pile? I'm talking about dog hair, cat hair, and human hair. Has anyone done it? Yes, it's ok to do it, but as others have said, during the spring I put pet combings into a mesh birdfeeder and it is eagerly taken by blue tits etc to line their nests. When I clear out the nestboxes in my garden during the winter, it's so nice to see an empty nest lined with the hair I provided. |
#13
|
|||
|
|||
Add hair to a compost pile
On 31/01/2012 19:21, Janet wrote:
In , says... We put hair out in chicken wire bags, hung from trees. Birds take it for nesting. Personally, I wouldn't want to put hair in the compost bin. I doubt it would do any harm, but it doesn't break down well. I've not found that. Janet No doubt it depends on the hair type, but some hair and especially human hair persists long after death. I've certainly found hair, both human and animal, lingering in my garden long after its cute and fluffy by date :~/ -- Spider from high ground in SE London gardening on clay |
#14
|
|||
|
|||
Add hair to a compost pile
On 2012-01-31, Martin wrote:
On Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:24:24 +0000, Spider wrote: No doubt it depends on the hair type, but some hair and especially human hair persists long after death. I've certainly found hair, both human and animal, lingering in my garden long after its cute and fluffy by date :~/ In The Yorkshire Museum in York, there is the hair of a Roman woman found when a Roman cemetery was excavated where the station is now. The preservation of ancient organic matter depends very much on the conditions it's stuck in. ISTR that anaerobic, waterlogged conditions make it last longer (sacrifices found in bogs, for example). |
#15
|
|||
|
|||
Add hair to a compost pile
On 01/02/2012 09:39, Sacha wrote:
On 2012-02-01 07:44:31 +0000, Chris Hogg said: On Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:55:13 +0100, David in Normandy wrote: On 31/01/2012 10:54, Martin wrote: On Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:44:44 +0000, wrote: On 2012-01-31 08:12:11 +0000, Chris said: On Tue, 31 Jan 2012 04:47:44 +0000 (UTC), (Dick Adams) wrote: Question: Is it ok to add hair to a compost pile? I'm talking about dog hair, cat hair, and human hair. Has anyone done it? Does anyone have cites about it? My wife cuts my and her own hair. The cuttings go on the compost heap, as do the contents of the vacuum cleaner which contain cat hair and fluff from woollen carpets. They all rot down and provide nitrogen, although fluff from synthetic (nylon?) carpets is persistent. Ours goes out the window to drift where it will and be used for nesting birds. and toupees :-) Presumably for the bald-headed eagles? Specifically for Merkins? RUDE!! I had to ask RG what that meant!! Sweet innocent thing that I am, I thought it was a rare type of bird until you sent 'rude'. (Blush). -- Spider from high ground in SE London |
Reply |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
Adding hair to a compost pile | North Carolina | |||
Adding hair to a compost pile | Edible Gardening |