I read somewhere that you can shred cereal boxes and use them in the compost - does that mean that we could also shred the diet coke and other soda boxes to be used? My reasoning is that now that we are having to pay for our trash cans and to have another recycle can emptied every week would be crazy - I am trying to compost as much as possible. I am even taking product boxes that have shiny stuff on the outside and soaking them in some water - the layers of cardboard seperate and I can then recycle JUST the shiny stuff. Any other ideas?

TIA,
Christina

One more item I thought of and wanted ya'lls opinion on - pizza boxes. I know the grease probly shouldn't go into the pile but since it's hot don't you think it would be fine? These items take up quite a bit of space in the trash can and if I could compost them that would be super!

Hugs!
Christina

while I am not sure about coke and cereal boxes, I am confident that you can put pizza boxes in the compost pile. The grease will not matter to the compost pile, it is non toxic and will make no difference. You may want to shred or at least cut up the boxes, because if you dont it will probaly take a long time to decompose.

Being a Certified Master Gardener/Master Composter...the rule of thumb for composting is - anything that comes from the land can go back to the land. That would include paper and cardboard products. I'd just break them into smaller pieces, flatten them out, tear them up...whatever is easiest to be able to be turned into compost sooner.

I compost dog hair when I brush my dogs, flattened cardboard egg cartons, dryer lint, junk mail, egg shells, coffee grounds, melon rinds, apple cores, vegtetable scraps and peelings, leaves (never branches from my pruned rose canes because the thorns do not compost)...all under my kitchen sink in the vermi-composting tub.

Meat scraps, dairy products never get composted because of danger of spoilage (sickness) and smell from rotting.