Is shredded newspaper toxic?

[echo69]

Yes, worms love newspaper, but they'll also eat waste that is contaminated with heavy metals, and I wouldn't want any of that in my wormery. It's more about what happens to any potentially harmful chemicals contained in the newspaper rather than whether or not they'll eat it.

As far as I know all wormery makers recommend shredded newspaper not only as  bedding but food, my own herd chomp any that I  use to cover any food that is added. Having worked in the newspaper industry for 43 years I know only to well the problems of the carbon in the ink, it would take a two week holiday to get rid of what I picked on my hands up during my normal working day no matter how often I would wash my hands, the scouring of sand and sea water over a holiday break would leave my hands nice and clean, our main problem was the absorption of lead, tin and antimony used in the casting of the plates for the presses.

[Alef]

How much danger is there in giving worms too much shredded paper? We're a household of five and fill our food waste caddy about twice a week which all goes in the wormery. I'm also shredding all of our food packaging, junk mail, cardboard, etc and it adds up to quite a lot! I'm a bit concerned my worms aren't getting a healthy enough mix but they seem fine...

[WormyMcWormerson]

I would avoid giving them anything glossy or brilliantly coloured. Brown paper, newspaper and plain cardboard should be fine. A roughly 50/50 mix of browns and waste would be OK, anything higher than that may slow down the composting process.

[WillyWorm]

Hi Alet, be a bit careful with food packaging and some cardboard, these are sometimes laminated with plastic, this won't harm your worms but looks a mess in your finished compost/castings. Try to just use matt papper and cardboard, I find plenty on the shelves of the local supermarket in the form of the packing trays that tin food was displayed in.

Willy

[WillyWorm]

Becareful with glossy food packaging and cardboard. They are often laminated with plastic, this will not harm your worms but looks a mess in the finished compost/castings. I collect the matt cardboard trays from the supermarket shelves, the sort that tin goods arrive in for display, they a thin enough to go through my paper shredder no problem.