How To Shred Newspaper For Compost Effectively

how to shred newspaper for compost
how to shred newspaper for compost

Compost is great nutrition for plants and especially those growing trees that you have recently planted. Compost can be basically anything including the rotting leaves, vegetables, or other organic material that can be consumed by the fungi or other decomposing elements in the soil.

The soil will break them down and the roots of your plants will be able to draw the nutrition from the compost to grow optimally. A great addition to it is newspaper. But, keep in mind that newspaper is only effective in the compost when you know how to shred it properly.

Why Using Newspaper for Compost is a Good Idea

While it might sound a bit odd, but the newspaper is also organic since the paper used for them is made out of wood and it can be a great addition to your compost. It is pretty easy to break as well and that will cause you to have the right addition for your compost without getting into too much of a mess.

The newspaper can be easily used for the compost, but you will need to avoid those glazing magazines or anything with the thick plastic coating on it as that will not be decomposing in time and can cause you to have other problems with soil and the roots of your plant by obstructing the water and nutrients supply for your plants.

How to Shred Newspaper For Compost

Now, since we have figured out that newspaper can be effectively used for the compost, all we will need to do is make sure that we are shredding it right. This is to ensure that it can be decomposed by the soil and fungi and plants can draw the nutrition from the newspaper that we intend on using.

To start with that, you can get the shredding scissors if you are dealing with a small amount of newspaper and shred it into smaller pieces to ensure that the newspaper is small enough to be decomposed easily and there are no major problems on that part. It is pretty simple and you just have to make sure that the pieces are tiny so that they can be dissolved in the compost effectively.

Moving forward, if you are looking to prepare the compost for a large garden, and you have planned to shred a large amount of newspaper, a scissor can be hectic to deal with and you will have to find other ways to get it done for you. To make it happen, the best way would be to ensure that you are shredding the newspaper fine for the compost would be to get a standard paper shredder and use that to shred the newspaper to tiny bits.

It would be great to soak the newspaper in water for a few hours after shredding it. Then you can add it to the compost. You will have to mix it up thoroughly with the rest of the compost. This is to ensure that it can be absorbed properly along with the other nutrients in your compost. This will help you prepare the best compost for all the plants you might be looking to grow in your garden.

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