Global Baskets LLC

You all have asked for this list over the years.  Recipients of Global Basket's Kitchen and Garden Basket collection have always received this list.  Now you can browse through it and improve your composting skills.  It is oh to easy.  Remember Compost needs only 4 things: Air Water Browns and Greens.

Greens are mostly nitrogen and contain 85 % water.  This includes your food waste even if it is brown in color like coffee grounds and grass clippings too.

Browns are mostly carbon and some from mostly trees:  leaves, sticks, paper, cardboard, sawdust, vacuum cleaner bags, tissue paper, newspaper, junk mail and so on.

Start your bin with about 6 inches of leaves and then just start layering greens and browns, Mother Nature will do all the rest.  Forget about turning and flipping;  just take a tomato stick and pop it down into the pile in 3-4 places and wiggle it around.  The sole purpose of this and flipping it is only to introduce air.  There is nothing complex to composting it is natural.

p.s. for those that wonder why food waste can't compost in the landfill....well it is burried without air, light or water.  That leads to anerobic metabolism or breakdown with an end product called Methane.  Methane is the winner for the worst green house gas on the planet.  Stop air pollution and compost at home.  It is a win-win for us all. 

p.s.s.  Compost doesn't have odor.  If it does it only means it needs more air.

From the Kitchen

1. Coffee grounds and filters
2. Tea bags
3. Used paper napkins
4. Pizza boxes, ripped into smaller pieces
5. Paper bags, either ripped or balled up
6. The crumbs you sweep off of the counters and floors
7. Plain cooked pasta
8. Plain cooked rice
9. Stale bread
10. Paper towel rolls
11. Stale saltine crackers
12. Stale cereal
13. Used paper plates (as long as they don’t have a waxy coating)
14. Cellophane bags (be sure it’s really Cellophane and not just clear plastic—there’s a difference.)
15. Nut shells (except for walnut shells, which can be toxic to plants)
16. Old herbs and spices
17. Stale pretzels
18. Pizza crusts
19. Cereal boxes (tear them into smaller pieces first)
20. Wine corks
21. Moldy cheese
22. Melted ice cream
23. Old jelly, jam, or preserves
24. Stale beer and wine
25. Paper egg cartons
26. Toothpicks
27. Bamboo skewers
28. Paper cupcake or muffin cups

From the Bathroom

Used facial tissues

1. Hair from your hairbrush
2. Toilet paper rolls
3. Old loofahs
4. Nail clippings
5. Urine
6. 100% Cotton balls
7. Cotton swabs made from 100% cotton and cardboard (not plastic) sticks

Personal Items

It might be a good idea to bury these items in your pile..

1. Cardboard tampon applicators
2. Latex condoms

From the Laundry Room

1. Dryer lint
2. Old/stained cotton clothing—rip or cut it into smaller pieces
3. Old wool clothing—rip or cut it into smaller pieces

From the Office

1. Bills and other documents you’ve shredded
2. Envelopes (minus the plastic window)
3. Pencil shavings
4. Sticky notes
5. Business cards (as long as they’re not glossy)
6. Receipts

Around the House

1. Contents of your vacuum cleaner bag or canister
2. Newspapers (shredded or torn into smaller pieces)
3. Subscription cards from magazines
4. Leaves trimmed from houseplants
5. Dead houseplants and their soil
6. Flowers from floral arrangements
7. Natural potpourri
8. Used matches
9. Ashes from the fireplace, barbecue grill, or outdoor fire pit

Party and Holiday Supplies

1. Wrapping paper rolls
2. Paper table cloths
3. Crepe paper streamers
4. Latex balloons
5. Raffia
6. Excelsior
7. Jack o’ Lanterns
8. Those hay bales you used as part of your outdoor fall decor
9. Natural holiday wreaths
10. Your Christmas tree. Chop it up with some pruners first (or use a wood chipper, if you have one...)
11. Evergreen garlands

Pet-Related

1. Fur from the dog or cat brush
2. Droppings and bedding from your rabbit/gerbil/hamsters, etc.
3. Newspaper/droppings from the bottom of the bird cage
4. Feathers
5. Alfalfa hay or pellets (usually fed to rabbits)
6. Rawhide dog chews
7. Fish food
8. Dry dog or cat food

Paper napkins
Freezer-burned vegetables
Burlap coffee bags
Pet hair
Potash rock
Post-it notes
Freezer-burned fruit
Wood chips
Bee droppings
Lint from behind refrigerator
Hay
Popcorn (unpopped, ‘Old Maids,’ too)
Freezer-burned fish
Old spices
Pine needles
Leaves
Matches (paper or wood)
Seaweed and kelp
Hops
Chicken manure
Leather dust
Old, dried up and faded herbs
Bird cage cleanings
Paper towels
Brewery wastes
Grass clippings
Hoof and horn meal
Molasses residue
Potato peelings
Unpaid bills
Gin trash (wastes from cotton plants)
Weeds
Rabbit manure
Hair clippings from the barber
Stale bread
Coffee grounds
Wool
Sawdust
Tea bags and grounds
Shredded newspapers
Egg shells
Cow manure
Alfalfa
Winter rye
Grapefruit rinds
Pea vines
Houseplant trimmings
Old pasta
Grape wastes
Garden soil
Powdered/ground phosphate rock
Corncobs (takes a long time to decompose)
Jell-o (gelatin)
Blood meal
Winery wastes
Spanish moss
Limestone
Fish meal
Aquarium plants
Beet wastes
Sunday comics
Harbor mud
Felt waste
Wheat straw
Peat moss
Kleenex tissues
Milk (in small amounts)
Soy milk
Tree bark
Starfish (dead ones!)
Melted ice cream
Flower petals
Pumpkin seeds
Q-tips (cotton swabs: cardboard, not plastic sticks)
Expired flower arrangements
Elmer’s glue
BBQ’d fish skin
Bone meal
Citrus wastes
Stale potato chips
Rhubarb stems
Old leather gardening gloves
Tobacco wastes
Bird guano
Hog manure
Dried jellyfish
Wheat bran
Guinea pig cage cleanings
Nut shells
Cattail reeds
Clover
Granite dust
Moldy cheese
Greensand
Straw
Shredded cardboard
Dolomite lime
Cover crops
Quail eggs (OK, I needed a ‘Q’ word)
Rapeseed meal
Bat guano
Fish scraps
Tea bags (black and herbal)
Apple cores
Electric razor trimmings
Kitchen wastes
Outdated yogurt
Toenail clippings
Shrimp shells
Crab shells
Lobster shells
Pie crust
Leather wallets
Onion skins
Bagasse (sugar cane residue)
Watermelon rinds
Date pits
Goat manure
Olive pits
Peanut shells
Burned oatmeal (sorry, Mom)
Lint from clothes dryer
Bread crusts
Cooked rice
River mud
Tofu (it’s only soybeans, man!)
Wine gone bad (what a waste!)
Banana peels
Fingernail and toenail clippings
Chocolate cookies
Wooden toothpicks
Moss from last year’s hanging baskets
Stale breakfast cereal
Pickles
’Dust bunnies’ from under the bed
Pencil shavings
Wool socks
Artichoke leaves
Leather watch bands
Fruit salad
Tossed salad (now THERE’s tossing it!)
Brown paper bags
Soggy Cheerios
Theater tickets
Lees from making wine
Burned toast
Feathers
Animal fur
Horse manure
Vacuum cleaner bag contents
Coconut hull fiber
Old or outdated seeds
Macaroni and cheese
Liquid from canned vegetables
Liquid from canned fruit
Old beer
Wedding bouquets
Greeting card envelopes
Snow
Dead bees and flies
Horse hair
Peanut butter sandwiches
Dirt from soles of shoes, boots
Fish bones
Ivory soap scraps
Spoiled canned fruits and vegetables
Produce trimmings from grocery store
Cardboard cereal boxes (shredded)
Grocery receipts

Gas receipts

Yard trimmings

Grass clippings Sawdust wood shavings

Oak leaves Yes, but Acidic

Pine cones

Wood chips

Hay and straw Cardboard rolls or any non-waxy paper or cardboard

Clean paper

Cotton rags

Dryer and vacuum cleaner lint

Fireplace ashes or  Wood ashes (P,K) Use small amounts; highly alkaline

Hair and fur Houseplants