Don't Throw Out That Tissue Paper! Add It To Your Compost Instead

During the holiday season, you might be accumulating a lot more trash than usual. Between paper napkins from hosting, tissue paper for gifts, and even running through extra nose tissue thanks to winter colds, it's easy for waste to add up. In many cases, these products end up straight in the trash. Did you know that paper waste can be composted, though?

Paper waste, which broadly refers to all discarded paper materials, is a major environmental concern. According to The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, about 110 million metric tons of paper and cardboard waste was dumped in 2019 in the United States, with only 38% being recycled. The rest was either deposited into a landfill or burned, both of which contributes to gas emissions. Instead of trashing paper waste, composting is an environmentally-friendly alternative that is becoming more accessible. 

You can compost almost all paper trash regardless of whether it has food, grease stains, or even boogers on it. Depending on your location, your city may offer municipal-run curbside programming, where compost is collected like your trash. You can also look into privately-run pick-up, too, or drop-off programs. These can be city or privately-run as well, but many of them have the benefit of being free to use. A good place to start is checking to see if your city has any neighborhood gardens that also compost.

If you don't want to rely on city or private programs, you can also compost tissue paper on your own. Composting at home has many benefits, reducing the amount of materials that are either landfilled or burned. But compost isn't just waste that lives in your yard forever. The microorganisms in these piles break down organic materials into a product that can be used for healthier soil and plant growth. That's part of why composting is sometimes referred to as "black gold".

As mentioned, paper waste is generally okay to compost. All you need to do is throw it on your compost pile. With gift tissue paper, first make sure that it has no foil, glitter, or shiny coating. If you don't already have a compost pit, though, you will need to create one. Luckily, you can make your own DIY compost pit fairly easily. There are several methods for composting including creating a backyard compost in an open pile or utilizing various bins, such as a big trash can with holes in it. You can also look into vermicomposting, which uses worms, or even make your own indoor composting bin with a few simple steps.  

When you start composting, you can treat paper waste as a "brown" organic material to create your vital base layer. However, you will need to include more than just tissue paper for proper composting. Make sure to brush up on what you can and cannot add to your compost. It's important to include other brown organic materials like dead leaves, small twigs, or straw as they are carbon-rich and help your compost pile breathe. On the other hand, green organic materials like coffee, food scraps (excluding meat and dairy), and grass clippings are nitrogen-rich, and they provide nutrients for the bacteria and fungi in your compost pile to break things down.

Composting still may not be for you and that's okay, too. There are other ways to dispose of paper waste, like recycling. However, you must be careful here as you can only recycle materials that have not been contaminated with food, grease, or other liquids. This means that used napkins or paper towels are a no-go. And similar to composting, you cannot recycle gift tissue paper that has containments like foil and glitter. 

The problem with recycling paper waste, though, is that a lot of these products come to you already made from recycled materials. This makes them really difficult to break down and re-use a second time so these products may end up getting sorted out and tossed anyway. So while attempting to recycle paper products is better than straight up trashing them, you can avoid them being discarded anyway by also re-using paper products at home whenever possible. 

If you get crafty, there's a plethora of uses for old paper products. For example, you can save gift tissue paper to re-use at another time. Some people also like shredding it to add some extra pizazz to the top of their gift bags. You can also make paper flowers to decorate your home or future gatherings with. In addition, it's easy to upcycle empty tissue boxes around your home including using them to hold yarn, store plastic bags, and more.