envelopes and compost
 

I've been happily shredding envelopes together with junk mail and other
superfluous letters and adding them to my compost. I read recently that
certain guests of Her Majesty were employed opening undeliverd letters and
extracting the little plastic address windows before sending them (the paper
envelopes that is, not the plastic bits) to be recycled.

Anyone know what the plastic windows are made of and will they compost?

Trefor

Trefor Jones wrote:
I've been happily shredding envelopes together with junk mail and other
superfluous letters and adding them to my compost. I read recently that
certain guests of Her Majesty were employed opening undeliverd letters and
extracting the little plastic address windows before sending them (the paper
envelopes that is, not the plastic bits) to be recycled.

Anyone know what the plastic windows are made of and will they compost?

Trefor


No they will not compost, neither will they recycle. Why shred them?
Just throw them in the dustbin.

Janet Baraclough wrote:
[...]
The other week North Ayrshire council donated every household
who
wanted, a set of dalek compost bins, a smaller perforated compost
tidy for the kitchen, and, what surprised me, a roll of plastic
liners for the kitchen holder. They are like rather flimsy
supermarket plastic carriers, and printed all over "biodegradeable
and
compostable"..confirmed in the instruction pack. (Our co-op
supermarket bags are also biodegradeable plastic, but I know from
verious uses round the garden it must be a slow proces :-).

I'm going to bury a couple of the new compost bags in my old
compost heap and the garden, to see what happens to them. I really
can't think that veg material tied inside them has a good chamce of
decomposing at normal rates.

Janet



I'd ve very interested to know what they're made of

Not my field, but these "bioplastics" are based on biological
polymers such as cellulose and starch instead of the synthetic
"mineral" long-chain molecules. So they will break down by composting
processes, but I have no idea of the speeds.

My only experience is with cellophane, made, of course, from
cellulose (cf rayon): that does seem to compost about as well as
paper. Since the bag material must be stronger and I suppose more
moisture-resistant than cellophane, though essentially similar, I'd
assume it would take longer.

I'd also hazard a guess that the plasticizers may have been chosen to
evaporate quicker than the usual ones; but that's taking me even
further out of my depth. (Where's Franz when we need him? I've
emailed, but received no reply.)

--
Mike.

"Trefor Jones" wrote in message
...
I've been happily shredding envelopes together with junk mail and other
superfluous letters and adding them to my compost. I read recently that
certain guests of Her Majesty were employed opening undeliverd letters and
extracting the little plastic address windows before sending them (the
paper
envelopes that is, not the plastic bits) to be recycled.

Anyone know what the plastic windows are made of and will they compost?

Trefor

No the plastic bits will not compost and they are a damm pain to pick out
again
I shred all my envelopes etc and put every cardboard box going into my
compost .........works a treat

Some say yes others, no. I will have to wait until August when I normally
change from one compost compartment to the other.

Pity I live in East Renfrewshire who have recently distributed brown bins
for garden waste - useful for things that take a long time to compost like
moss which grows in great abundance here!- no dalek bins for us! Seems daft
giving good compostable stuff to the council for free so that you can buy it
back later!
Trefor

"Trefor Jones" wrote in message
...
I've been happily shredding envelopes together with junk mail and other
superfluous letters and adding them to my compost. I read recently that
certain guests of Her Majesty were employed opening undeliverd letters and
extracting the little plastic address windows before sending them (the
paper
envelopes that is, not the plastic bits) to be recycled.

Anyone know what the plastic windows are made of and will they compost?

Trefor

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My experience is that they don't compost, at least not in the timescale that I use my compost. And shredded plastic is almost impossible to remove! So I bin the envelopes. Sellotape doesn't compost either, so best to remove it from cardboard boxes before they go on the heap, but at least that's easier to remove from the compost (I keep a bin bag next to the heap for all the things that get in there and shouldn't have.)

I don't bother to shred cardboard - sheets of it always have huge numbers of worms under them. I shred paper if required for security reasons but not to aid composting.