I'm not sure why facial or toilet tissue would be excluded - they are eminently compostable, as are paper towels, paper napkins, paper plates and the non-waxed types of paper food containers. Even our local waste recycling service (aka garbage truck pick-up) permits these types of paper products, along with compostable kitchen waste, in the yard waste collection bins that wind up at the municipal compost plant. For best results and speedy decomposition, all paper and cardboard products should be shredded or torn into small pieces before adding to your pile.

Tracy, I added pine needles to an horse manure/hay bin and they did not breakdown sufficiently. When I grated the end product I still had needles which I ended up using for mulching. The only real downside was the time it took to extract the needles from the composted manure/hay. In looking over several of your postings on the vermicomposting systems you have designed, which are very impressive, I was wondering how pine needles would affect the system if they did not break down completely. I don't know how you garden Tracy, but if I had that resource available, I might consider 'Lasagna' layering with manure of some sort.

ah, but there's an apartment-living angle to your post--the communal trash. Nobody had to die for me to do it, but I snagged a big batch of construction paper from the garbage once; I think Justin upstairs had a school project w/ lots of greens and browns (maybe he made a tree?), because those colors were all gone (or nearly). Our downstairs neighbors got a new fireplace screen, and we snagged their old one (it fit our fireplace, since it's the same size). True folks in houses can take stuff out of other people's trash, but it's easier in an apt. bldg.

Lily, huck toweling? Just googled it and hard to tell what it is... Can you enlighten me? About microfiber, honestly I cannot stand the way that stuff feels on my hands, it's similar to chalk on a blackboard and it snags on cuticles. I have to wear a pair of disposable latex gloves when using them -- which sort of defeats the purpose of using something re-useable, LOL. I just noticed yesterday that the horizontal part of my PT holder is covered with PT dust. It has been up in this house for a year. It's a very nice one from Ballard Designs and was up in my last house for 2-3 years and never got any dust on it at all. It's definitely little PT fibres.