Using Shredded Paper for Coop Litter - As Good As Wood Chips?

[gtaus]

It costs more to recycle than to use the landfill and there are very few buyers for any of the materials because raw materials are cheaper to obtain and easier to process.

It's all a feel-good, smoke-and-mirrors thing.

That's what I thought. At any rate, I can shred the paper at home, use it in the coop as deep bedding, dump it into the chicken run when I clean the coop out, turn the paper shreds into compost for the gardens, grow great food to eat! That's the real feel-good method!

 

[gtaus]

Reduce, reduce, reduce reuse recycle is a good start.

Yes. A good start. I try to reduce, reuse, repurpose, recycle.

Sometimes an item can be repurposed for use in a totally different way. I had a couple broken swing set swings, and I repurposed some of the chain for my brooder's hanging heat lights, some chain got used to suspend my 5 gallon PVC feeder in the coop, and I used a couple short chain sections with a turnbuckle to work as a tie down strap for my riding mower's grass collector that was falling off the mounts when the baskets got full. The rubber-plastic seat can be cut up to be used as a heavy duty hinge. But I still have most of the seat sitting in the garage to be used for some future project.

Point is, a lot of things might be repurposed in a different application.

 

[gtaus]

Not in my country. We have a splendid system here for recycling paper & cardboard.

That's good to hear. I have lived in Europe a few times in my life since the early 1980's and some of you have been many years ahead of us in terms of the Green movement.

Unfortunately, here in the USA, we live in a kind of make believe Green world. Although we have recycling centers, I don't see any material being used to make new items. When I lived in Minneapolis, back in the 1990's, we had to separate our glass, metal, plastics, paper, cardboard, and misc. garbage into separate recycle bins. The city newspaper had a spy follow the recycling trucks and discovered that all the segregated material was just hauled out to a landfill out of the city and everything was just dumped there in big piles, all mixed together. Since then, I really don't trust that our recycling efforts amount to anything other than maybe making us feel better about ourselves.

That's why I chose to recycle my paper at home, keep all my grass clippings and leaves, chip up the wood that falls on the ground after a storm, and reuse/repurpose as much other stuff I can before I haul it off to the recycle center.

 

[gtaus]

I'm in the middle of millions of acres of pine trees that are farmed specifically for the lumber and pulpwood industries. That keeps the cost of making paper from the pulpwood low.

I also live in timber country. We do have lumber processing plants and paper mills not far from here. When it's cheaper to make new paper than processing old paper for reuse, I doubt there is any incentive to use recycled paper. I say, just shred the paper at home, use it as bedding/litter for the chickens, then toss it out into a compost system.

Until COVID hit, our lumber prices were relatively low. Now, a simple 2X4 stud costs something like $4000.00 each. More seriously, I used to buy 4X8 foot particle board for $7.00 a sheet, now it's like $45.00 per sheet.

 

[gtaus]

I tried worms in AZ. Epic fail. I have had my bin going in PA (in the basement) for over a year. I give them stuff I can't give to the chickens (raw potato peels, etc). I mostly have the worms for their castings which are great added to containers or seed starting mixes. It's nice to run stuff to the basement instead of traipsing out in the cold and digging through snow to bury food waste. That will change when I have a covered run and chickens.

I'm all for worm bins, but unless you have lots and lots of worms, then you cannot expect to make much compost from their worm castings as compared to the compost volume that a small backyard flock of chickens can make. For those of us living in northern snow states, you need that worm bin setup down in the basement to get through the winter. Glad to hear that your second effort on the worm bins is working for you.

 

[BDutch]

That's good to hear. I have lived in Europe a few times in my life since the early 1980's and some of you have been many years ahead of us in terms of the Green movement.

Unfortunately, here in the USA, we live in a kind of make believe Green world. Although we have recycling centers, I don't see any material being used to make new items. When I lived in Minneapolis, back in the 1990's, we had to separate our glass, metal, plastics, paper, cardboard, and misc. garbage into separate recycle bins. The city newspaper had a spy follow the recycling trucks and discovered that all the segregated material was just hauled out to a landfill out of the city and everything was just dumped there in big piles, all mixed together. Since then, I really don't trust that our recycling efforts amount to anything other than maybe making us feel better about ourselves.

That's why I chose to recycle my paper at home, keep all my grass clippings and leaves, chip up the wood that falls on the ground after a storm, and reuse/repurpose as much other stuff I can before I haul it off to the recycle center.

In the Netherlands there were rumours about piling up the separated waste too. But this only happened occasionally and mostly in the past.

Only recycling plastic is still a problem for most plastic. Plastic from new oil is still cheaper than recycling. We do have better recycling systems now for soda and water bottles (embalage).

Hopefully the higher prices of oil will lead to more plastic recycling. Shredding it is no option. Because we have already too much plastic particles and microplastics in our environment. Doctors are afraid this will lead to health problems for all species. Including humans.

 

[Tinypahomestead]

I'm all for worm bins, but unless you have lots and lots of worms, then you cannot expect to make much compost from their worm castings as compared to the compost volume that a small backyard flock of chickens can make. For those of us living in northern snow states, you need that worm bin setup down in the basement to get through the winter. Glad to hear that your second effort on the worm bins is working for you.

True, they don't make as much volume, but it is concentrated and a little added to my potting mix or soil block mix works wonders.

 

[gtaus]

Hopefully the higher prices of oil will lead to more plastic recycling. Shredding it is no option. Because we have already too much plastic particles and microplastics in our environment. Doctors are afraid this will lead to health problems for all species. Including humans.

I agree that plastics are a problem. Try as I might, there is not many uses I can find for my waste plastic. Almost all of my plastic gets dumped at the recycle center. Instead of just trying to find more ways to recycle plastic, I think we would be better off replacing as much plastic with paper-based products that can biodegrade. If it's compostable paper, I can deal with that at home myself.

Plastics are such a great product in so many ways. It's the end of life of each product we need to think about more. As a former scuba diver, I hate to see all those floating plastic islands out in the oceans polluting the system.

 

[gtaus]

True, they don't make as much volume, but it is concentrated and a little added to my potting mix or soil block mix works wonders.

Is there anything better than worm castings? I doubt it. A little bit goes a long way. When I setup my worm bin, I had the false idea that I would be feeding all our kitchen scraps to the worms and harvesting worm castings in a few weeks. Well, my small worm bin could not keep up with our kitchen scraps and I killed off the bin long before it had any chance of turning into compost. Epic fail.

Chickens have worked out much better for me. They eat all our kitchen scraps and leftovers, and I could feed them even more scraps if we had more. Also, they have made so much compost in the chicken run that I cannot use it all, so most of it sits on the ground waiting for me to harvest it. I have not hauled off anything organic (grass clippings, leaves, wood) since I recycle all my organics in the chicken run. For me, it's a great setup.

I am still a big fan of those of you that have worm bins. Someday, I might try again, with a more realistic of the end product I can get from that sized bin. Live and learn.

 

[TropicalBabies]

Try as I might, there is not many uses I can find for my waste plastic

It's like drinking out of a fire hose and near impossible to not keep bringing plastic home. In every mail order or store item purchased down to produce etc etc. It's insane.
We outlawed plastic bags in my county thank goodness and several if not all other island counties have too- yes, plastic in the ocean - and now we have a Costco and Safeway that bring in an incredible amount of plastics.
I think if they bring it in they need to be a part of the solution.
Bravo on your efforts. A reuse plastic thread would be cool too (hint-hint lol)