paper needle caps compostable?

[pondita]

OK, I have an odd question, but I thought maybe someone might know. Even if you don't know, I'd like your opinion please. 🙂 We just bought a composter for our vegetable garden. I have so many of those little paper caps for insulin needles, I'm wondering if I can compost them. I've looked at them, and torn one up, but can't tell if there's a bit of plastic in the product. Thoughts?

 

[rebrascora]

I am pretty sure there isn't any plastic having just torn some of mine. They are so negligible in size/volume, I had not considered composting them and I just dispose of them in the same box as my test strips, but I will now. I compost labels off food cans and checkout receipts etc.

 

[Proud to be erratic]

Not sure about any plastic content; these days it's sometimes difficult to tell - all is not always what it seems.

But I have a cousin who was a former conservator and restorer at the BM. She has a very good awareness of things that might not be as healthy or safe as one might at first think. For instance I was putting shredded paper into my garden compost heap, thinking it would provide some balance to the content (or at least wouldn't hurt) and also might help aerate the heap; her reaction was that the inks, particularly the coloured inks, would probably be harmful to the environment and certainly not "organic" in the agricultural sense. We did a little reach that evening from the internet and concluded that her instinct seemed correct.

 

[eggyg]

We compost paper and cardboard but only ones without ink. Like @Proud to be erratic we researched it carefully. If it’s an envelope we can tear the inky bit off, same as boxes, we tear the label off. It’s a minefield isn’t it? We wet them too to make them easier to tear into smaller pieces. We don’t have much paper/cardboard recycling at all these days, we do have cans, bottles and plastics ( both soft and hard) and then not too much of the latter these days. I don’t think I’ll see the day when everything is recyclable but I hope my children and grandchildren do. It’s a passion of ours and has been for 35 years. Our great big grey wheelie bin, which gets emptied fortnightly, hardly ever has anything in it, and what it does have in, is in a compostable bin bag.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

We compost paper and cardboard but only ones without ink. Like @Proud to be erratic we researched it carefully. If it’s an envelope we can tear the inky bit off, same as boxes, we tear the label off. It’s a minefield isn’t it? We wet them too to make them easier to tear into smaller pieces. We don’t have much paper/cardboard recycling at all these days, we do have cans, bottles and plastics ( both soft and hard) and then not too much of the latter these days. I don’t think I’ll see the day when everything is recyclable but I hope my children and grandchildren do. It’s a passion of ours and has been for 35 years. Our great big grey wheelie bin, which gets emptied fortnightly, hardly ever has anything in it, and what it does have in, is in a compostable bin bag.

Many inks these days are vegetable based, but you can never be sure.

The paper parts of my infusion set coverings go in our council paper recycling, which is intended to take coloured printed matter.

Our composting stuff is taken separately.

On a separate note I still take the windows out of window envelopes before recycling - but half suspect that the windows (or at least some of them) may now be biodegradable/compostable/recyclable

 

[42istheanswer]

Many inks these days are vegetable based, but you can never be sure.

The paper parts of my infusion set coverings go in our council paper recycling, which is intended to take coloured printed matter.

Our composting stuff is taken separately.

On a separate note I still take the windows out of window envelopes before recycling - but half suspect that the windows (or at least some of them) may now be biodegradable/compostable/recyclable

I think you may be able to add the windows to plastic bag recycling bins at Sainsbury's now.

 

[Leadinglights]

Many many years ago I worked in a research lab and we were looking at worm composing as a way of using paper mill waste pulp and set up small scale wormeries and we produced a usable compost that was suitable for growing things or at least cress which is what we tried. But it was interesting to note the worms became the colour of the pulp we used.
I have a Wiggly Wigglers wormery which most veg waste goes into, not too much fruit as you get fruit flies and things like egg boxes and any other cardboard. Most stuff is processed except avocado skins.

 

[pondita]

Many many years ago I worked in a research lab and we were looking at worm composing as a way of using paper mill waste pulp and set up small scale wormeries and we produced a usable compost that was suitable for growing things or at least cress which is what we tried. But it was interesting to note the worms became the colour of the pulp we used.
I have a Wiggly Wigglers wormery which most veg waste goes into, not too much fruit as you get fruit flies and things like egg boxes and any other cardboard. Most stuff is processed except avocado skins.

Avocado skin doesn't process, eh? My husband and I have had conversations about that, and have been cutting up the skin and putting it in the compost. Should we not, though?

 

[Leadinglights]

Avocado skin doesn't process, eh? My husband and I have had conversations about that, and have been cutting up the skin and putting it in the compost. Should we not, though?

I meant it was one thing that the worms didn't seem able to break down and was always left the same as when it went in.

 

[42istheanswer]

Avocado skin doesn't process, eh? My husband and I have had conversations about that, and have been cutting up the skin and putting it in the compost. Should we not, though?

In a traditional compost bin/heap you don't just have worms, there are other creepy crawlies hard at work too. So it might be that one of them is breaking them down for you? If you've been doing it for a while then you could always check to see if they seem to have "disappeared" or are readily identifiable even in older compost

 

[rebrascora]

There is no harm in putting the avocado skins in the compost bin. Even if they haven't broken down when you come to use the compost you can either fish them out and return them to the compost bin for further breakdown with new material or just leave them in the compost you are about to use. Eventually they will degrade just like hardwood but it is just that it takes longer. They won't kill your plants just because they haven't broken down. I find the avocado stones are very slow to break down too, but they are organic matter so fine to just go back in the compost bin for another year or two or smash them and then compost. I once found an avocado seedling growing in my compost bin. It made it to about 18 inches tall but didn't survive the winter even in the poly tunnel.
I usually riddle my compost to take out the larger lumps of stuff and put them back in the bin and use the fine stuff riddled stuff for potting plants or sowing seeds..... usually mixed with some mole hill soil and commercial compost and riddled well broken down horse manure of which I have a very ready supply!