One small step - do we really need a newspaper?

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One small step - do we really need a newspaper?
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boff

Joined: 23 Mar 2005
Posts: 354
Location: Still alive and kicking

Posted: Mon May 09, 05 11:56 am Post subject:

wellington womble wrote:

Anyone got a use for glossy paper - can you compost that?

I seem to remember someone saying that the ink was an issue with glossy stuff - think it contains something nasty

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Mon May 09, 05 12:57 pm Post subject:
depends what you read I suppose, in my opinion, quite a lot of what's printed on glossy paper's pretty nasty!

nettie

Joined: 02 Dec 2004
Posts: 5888
Location: Suffolk

Posted: Mon May 09, 05 5:31 pm Post subject:
I used to get the Times on a Sunday for the TV guide primarily , then the paper itself and the magazine, and realised all the other stuff ended up in the recycling. I then tried the Express but got turned off by their pre election coverage. I always like to get the local paper to find out the farmers' markets, cinema, gigs etc, if they did a TV guide I wouldn't bother buying anything else.

Nanny

Joined: 17 Feb 2005
Posts: 4520
Location: carms in wales

Posted: Mon May 09, 05 6:19 pm Post subject: newspaper

all we have is the saturday east anglian now...no time to sit and read the newspaper every day and it takes all week to read a sunday paper from front to back anyway and we just don't have that sort of free time

but you have to hae one paper a week i think to light the fire with and make all thepaper pots etc as spoken about above

it wouldn't take much for all newspapers to become redundant and there are some that certainly should be

mochyn

Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 24585
Location: mid-Wales

Posted: Tue May 10, 05 10:57 am Post subject:

CAT have done tests on newspaper &c and found that the inks used in printing contain toxins at such low levels as to be no problem. And the coating on glossy paper is a chalky substance that is actually beneficila in a compost heap! All this from a chap who came to speak to a local gardening club about composting from CAT. So screw it up and chuck it in! By the way, he also said that all paper/card should be screwed up loosely before composting.

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Tue May 10, 05 11:23 am Post subject:
That's useful information M. I have been carefully separating out the glossy paper. Nice to know I don't have to do that any more.

moogie

Joined: 02 Feb 2005
Posts: 525
Location: Near Bridgend

Posted: Tue May 10, 05 11:53 am Post subject:
I have a shreader for shredding all my bills before putting them on the compost heap so don't need a newspaper

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Tue May 10, 05 4:55 pm Post subject:
Oh good, that's solved another waste problem (at least in principle) then! Does anyone compost biodegradeable plastic bags? I'm tempted....

selfsufficientish

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 364
Location: Bristol

Posted: Tue May 10, 05 6:27 pm Post subject:

Have met someone on anther forum who composts biodegradable bags. (Ecover do biodegradable bin bags too) There is a drawback, they can start to rot within a fortnight.

I pick up the metro every time I am on a bus, and if it is the bus that goes to both universties I take a few. By the end of the evening there are copies floating around every bus stop and the bus floor is littered with them. I figure at least if I take them home they will get recycled.

There are other uses for newpapers You can of course make newpaper pots https://www.selfsufficientish.com/newspaperpots.htm as I have in the past and also papier mache objects as I am experimenting with at the moment. Mind you Judy (ot woods) relably informs me that newpaper is not the strongest substance to use when making papier machie things.

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alison
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 12918
Location: North Devon

Posted: Sat May 14, 05 8:22 pm Post subject:
We gave up taking a paper nearly 7 years ago now. I don't even watch the news. I read from the headlines on my IP homepage, and my DH watches the news about 3 times a day and will pass on snippets.

n

Joined: 07 Jun 2005
Posts: 211
Location: Lothian

Posted: Sun Jun 12, 05 12:16 pm Post subject:

We get a paper at the weekend, and if we are on holiday. Mind you it does mean that a couple of hours go missing along the line when we lose track of time.
Two things though. First is that we try to encourage the teenagers in the house to engage with the world just a little, by reading the paper. They need the skill of reading for a purpose for school and for the future, if they go on to study, and a newspaper is a useful tool for that.
Second. I have just discovered Sudoku.... cue even more hours of uncommunicative silence while I work out that if there is a seven there and a three there then that means, cup of tea? can't you see I'm about to fill in the last line oh sod it have to start again.
n

Lozzie

Joined: 25 May 2005
Posts: 2595

Posted: Sun Jun 12, 05 4:15 pm Post subject:

LOL, n

We are super-cheeky and ask our neighbours if we can read their local daily paper the day after, once they have finished with it. Local papers are a goldmine of information and the small ads are normally quite entertaining too

Gave up broadsheets after we had kids - suddenly, the lie-in in bed on a Sunday morning evaporated. They seem to be so full of adverts and "this season's simply MUST-HAVE collection from our very own Pap Editor!"

Loz x

Bugs

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744

Posted: Sun Jun 12, 05 4:22 pm Post subject:

See your point there, n, and it makes sense in that case. I just seem to never get round to reading 3/4 of the paper, it would be good for me no doubt though! (Haven't a clue what Sudoki is though!)

Agree with Lozzie too on the value of local papers - my parents' town has a daily paper, which is a good size and has lots of proper local news in it. I love reading it even when I go up there just to see, and I love reading other people's local papers. Sadly round here we have the choice of the Evening Standard, a local free weekly that barely even registers as a newspaper, or three or four advertiser/mirrors that none of them quite cover the region we live and work in

. Oh, and they are broadsheets which is just silly

Must admit though that the other night when we had to bring some tender plants in overnight I couldn't find any newspaper to protect the kitchen table

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Sun Jun 12, 05 7:35 pm Post subject:
My mum has just bought a house with land, and is sending out housewarming (camping!) invites with a alist of things she wants people to save for her - newspaper, loo rolls, plastic containers, water bottles........ Mr Womble and I fight over the newspapers in the winter, as we only get the weekly free one, and he wants it to light the fire, and I want it to make paper pots from!

joanne

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 7100
Location: Morecambe, Lancashire

Posted: Mon Jun 13, 05 8:44 am Post subject:

We don't get a daily paper - never have done although we do usually buy the 2 weekly local papers and we also get the free weeklies (2 atm) so our house always seems to have loads of newspaper about

I tend to wait until I have a decent amount and then shread it for the compost bin

I hadn't been shredding glossies though - will start that as I get Computing Weekly sent to my house.

I was never one for reading the paper rather read a good book and I find the dailies far too opinionated for my tastes anyway

Joanne

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