The problem with composting paper & cardboard

[Green Aura]

When my daughter was small (18-24 months ish) she ate half a sheet of the Guardian (don't ask).

I was a bit freaked, rang A+E (bit embarrassing as I was a sister there at the time) and was told not to worry, the inks were safe and she'd live to tell the tale.

She did. I'm not sure I'd compost the colour supplements, but newspaper - even with a bit of colour should be fine. Mix it with any grass cuttings to add air and stop it going slimy.

[wulf]

If you really want to compost paper on its own, you might want to try a wormery. If you were to place some sort of covered box on bare soil, follow ina's advice for the paper, and maybe drop in some red worms, you might be able to get a soil-making thing going. I have read that worms will actually make compost out of paper alone. Unless you actually started off with a lot of worms though, it would take a long time before they started to digest large quantities of paper.

My compost is very worm rich - maybe that's why I haven't found any discernible paper in the output?

Wulf