It's not only shredded paper your worms will love, they will enjoy many other forms of paper too. Chuck in your paper towels, paper packaging, cardboard, toilet rolls etc.
Yes, paper towels can be added to the composting bin. Redworms are able to break down most of what is contained in a paper towel into useable fine soil for your garden or house plants.
Items you cannot compost in a worm bin:
Onions and garlic (a good rule of thumb is if it makes you smell, it makes your worm bin smell) Meat, fats, grease, bones or oils (no butter, lard, stocks, soups, etc) Plastics and plastic coated paper (like glossy magazines)
Paper towels can be composted if they are free from grease, chemical residue, or heavy bacteria. Clean and unused paper towels are safe to compost, as well as paper towels used to clean surfaces, dishes, and to dry your hands.
Instead of soil, composting red worms live in moist newspaper bedding. Like soil, newspaper strips provide air, water, and food for the worms. Using about 50 pages, tear newspaper into 1/2" to 1" strips. Avoid using colored print, which may be toxic to the worms.
After worms are added, bedding should be kept moist but not soggy and the top 6 to 8 inches turned every 7 to 10 days to keep it loose. About every 6 to 9 months the old bedding should be replaced with properly prepared new bedding. To change bedding, remove the top 5 or 6 inches (where most of the worms are).
Papter towel and toilet paper rolls can be recycled or composted! If you have a compost pail in the bathroom (which we recommend due to being able to compost tissues and cotton swaps with paper sticks), toilet paper rolls can go into the compost as well!
Put used or clean facial tissues (such as Kleenex or Scotties tissue) and toilet paper in your green cart for composting. Most bodily fluids (saliva, tears, mucus etc.) are acceptable.
A paper towel takes around 2-4 weeks to biodegrade. Given that this is shorter than most fruit and veg, it's easy to see why paper towels needn't be recycled.
Banana peels are an excellent worm food.
Bread, rice, pasta, processed foods - you can add the odd crust or bits of cooked rice off the dinner plate, but don't add lots of starchy foods. Worms don't like them and they may go off or attract pests.
Worms hate: meat or fish, cheese, butter, greasy food, animal waste, spicy and salty foods, citrus.” The food-to-worm ratio is not precise, nor is the amount of castings they will produce. The rule of thumb is that a pound of worms will eat one to two pounds of food in a week.
Whether made from virgin pulp, recycled paper, or bamboo, all clean paper towels are compostable.
Paper towels on their own are considered brown items, but materials like food particles on the paper towels can be green items. Other types of brown items include: Uncoated cardboard, torn into small pieces.
All your kitchen waste can be added to your wormery. This includes cooked food scraps, veg peelings, tea leaves, coffee grounds, bread, pasta and rice. You can also add vacuum cleaner dust, hair, wool, cotton and egg shells. Never add dog or cat faeces to your wormery as these contain pathogens.
Except for colored and glossy paper, which might contain some toxic heavy metals, newsprint and other paper is safe to use as mulch or in compost.
More sawdust and pine shavings should be used
If you urinate in your composting toilet and it smells, just add additional sawdust to the mix. Before you begin to use the toilet, make sure to add a few inches to the bottom. Pine shavings are often less expensive than other types of wood shavings.
Yes, you can compost uncooked rice, but again, you must be ready to deal with a few challenges. For one, uncooked rice is a staple food and a grain at that. It's pretty solid too, which means it'll take a significant amount of time for it to break down. The lack of moisture also doesn't help matters.
Garbage or Compost - Do Not Recycle.
Paper egg cartons can be composted after you remove any shiny paper labels. If you can't remove the label easily, simply compost the bottom of the carton and put the part with the label in your garbage. If you can't compost, put egg cartons in the garbage.
Special instructions: Drain any excess liquid down the sink before composting filters and tea bags. Remove any staples from the tea bag before composting. Put nylon and other fabric-based tea bags into the garbage (tea leaves can be separated out for the compost).
Banana peels are a great ingredient for your compost or worm farm, adding lots of nutrients to the organic recycling process.
Once every week, pour about five litres of fresh water into the Top Working Tray, which will flood down through the lower trays, ensuring the entire worm farm remains very moist. The sudden 'flood' will not harm the worms. Adding water is especially important in the hotter months of the year.
Rule #3: Target watering 1-2 times per week. Watering daily or multiple times per week is not normally required. In many cases you can water every week or so - it depends on temperature, humidity, and other factors so monitor the bin and if you see it getting dry give it a good misting or spray.
Over-Feeding Causes Odors
The worms' job is to eat the food before it gets super-rotten and stinky. If you add too much food at a time, they cannot keep up. Too much food can also push the air out of the bin, leading to foul-smelling anaerobic decomposition.