I'd like to open some dialogue about things we can recycle into the garden. We all know about greens and browns, weeds, vegetable kitchen scraps, egg shells, etc. As I look around me I am frustrated about the amount of trash I have, even though a lot can go in the recycle bin. Can we compost toilet paper and paper towel rolls, white pages of the phone books, how about yellow pages, white paper out of the computer with black print, is colored print verboten, how about fax paper, white envelopes. Do these things contribute to the garden?

I'd be interested in hearing what others put in their compost piles. I like to see less go out the door to the garbageman. And I'd like to recycle more of my own stuff as the stuff we pick up like our neighbors grass clippings and leaves have only heaven knows what on them. Hope this topic interests you too.

Terrific topic, thanks! Speaking for "us here" we shred any paper except 4 color process (that absorbed toxic volatiles) using a simple shredder. Cellulose is always useful for composting.
Leaves, grass clippings and similar plant matter as it is generated is automatically piled. On a sunny day, seaweed is gathered and chopped, left to sundry and composted. On southern Vancouver Island,a fairly intense recycling program does exist so the waste stream is gradually being reduced. Food grade PE waste is collected and turned into recycled plastic lumber, cardboard is collected and re-pulped in a pulpmill that has been modified to do so. Municipalities routinely collect and chip up yard waste (branches, leaves) and provide half decent compost/mulch in spring.
Egg shells as a source of calcium is augmented with crushed oyster shells.

By and large, this area recycles and composts. It is a matter of rubber-hammering education.

fwiw.
John / Ecologicalsgardens

I, too, would appreciate some feedback about what others are doing to reduce the waste going into our landfills. We have a home business and generate a great deal of cardstock scraps, office-type paper and such. I try to recycle as much as possible, but don't have a shredder or a reasonably convenient location to drop off card board boxes, plastics, etc. One of our biggest loads is plastic packing peanuts. I've heard suggestions for using them in the bottom of large pots to save on potting soil and excessive weight, but am forced to put out almost a full garbage bag a week of this stuff, and would like suggestions on how to recycle it or some other way to reduce its bulk. Why are manufacturers using so much of this stuff and why aren't more using the water soluable type? Any ideas on how we can encourage this change? We make a concerted effort to purchase only items with minimum plastic packaging, but are frustrated in those efforts quite frequently. I'd welcome some more suggestions about this type of material.

Here in Portland OR, I understand that there are businesses that will take plastic peanuts and re-use them in their own shipping depts. When I worked for UPS we considered peanuts a joke as far as packing mat'l. goes; your product eventually settles to the bottom of the box as it gets handled and generally suffers some damage by the time it reaches it's destination. If you knew how your packages were tossed around when they are shipped....
I know that when I set up the recycling program at my work, there was a Business Recycling Resource that I worked with. They sent a recycling specialist to the business and we walked through all of the options available to business recycling customers. Perhaps some sort of equivalent exists in your community? As far as paper goes, we have awesome weekly curbside pickup for newspaper and office paper. However, I would love to hear of ways to reuse plastic of all sorts. As of now the only viable recycling program is for only one type of HPE. Any ideas y'all?

i as see that more companies are using soya ink in their printing i am using more to mulch and compost into my garden. one thing i use is a paper shredding machine to start the process of breaking down my junk mail, old bills and used computer paper and the rest of those papers. besides putting my coffee grounds into my garden i, also, put the filter in with it. i use the rrrc method at my home to put the least back into our trash cycle. i try to convince people to start at a 10 percent level of lessening their trash and they are amazed at much they are wasting, from this some of them have tried to increase their lessening amount. every less into the land fill is a win for our side. peace be with you and may your garden be mulchable.

Recycling everything veggie in the kitchen:
Vermicomposting! Wow! I even bring stuff home from work!
Recycling everything plastic:
We have a recycling service, but I've contacted the companies that produce products that I use a lot of (shampoo, conditioner) and inquire about where I can get the industrial/large/quantity sizes. Less packaging.
Work:
I've bugged and bugged the folks at work to use unbleached coffee filters...and it finally paid off!

Thanks for the great ideas, ya'all.