Get the right balance of brown and green composting materials in your bin with our expert guide.
Used paper towels, napkins, and tissues can be composted, allowing these products to breakdown naturally rather than ending up in landfills. Composting these paper items can enrich your garden soil and reduce waste.
Composting used paper towels, napkins, and tissues offers several key benefits:
Many common paper items can be added to your compost:
You can also compost paper plates, coffee filters, tea bags, pizza boxes, paper egg cartons, brown paper bags, cardboard boxes, and newspaper.
Proper preparation helps your paper products decompose efficiently in the compost pile:
A hot, active compost pile will process paper products quickly. Here are some tips:
Follow these guidelines for successful composting with paper waste in your backyard. Producing high-quality compost takes some patience as a home gardening project, but cutting down on paper towel and napkin waste going to landfills makes it worthwhile for the planet.
Avoid composting paper towels or napkins containing cleaning chemicals, grease from automobile shops, colored ink, or plastics. Most dyed paper products are not suitable for backyard compost piles.
Shredded paper towels and torn up napkins break down within 2-5 months in an active compost pile. Whole paper towels may take 6-12 months.
Covering paper products can help the composting process. Adding a layer of leaves, straw, or soil over paper waste will retain heat and moisture in the pile.
Paper products have a carbon-to-nitrogen ratio around 170:1 - making them "browns" in composting terms. Mix paper with "green" nitrogen-rich waste like food scraps that have a 30:1 ratio. Blend both types of waste to achieve 25-30:1.