I use cardboard with the shiny paper on it all the time. For me, the fastest way to get it through to compost bin is to tear it up into smaller pieces and mix it up with your trusty pitch fork. Don't forget to turn your pile at least once a week.

Thanks, Sunny. I wondered because I have asked at grocery stores before and they say they recycle their cardboard. The stockers and checkers wouldn't care probably better than asking management. I have obtained big cardboard from furniture stores before for school projects.

speaking from experience and seeing what happened when we moved into my moms house after she died i would say cardboard is a definate no no. Mom had a cold celler filled from top to bottom with cardboard boxes containing fragile and antique ceramics, clothing that literally shredded as we took them out! The ceramics? we lost quite a bit of tehm do to bottoms falling out of the boxes. we had to use hazmat suits to clean the cold cellar out due to black mold that was rampant through the cardboard boxes and clothing. (clothing and cardboard are a attractant to this type of mold) Moms attic was also FULL of cardboard boxes full of iteems which stunk to high heaven due to dampness and we filled a 40 yd garbage container 4 times. We have been cleaning the house out and renovating since october and still we find issues that could have been avoided as a result of cardboard being used to store all of her 'treasures'. Luckily we are in the waste and recycling business so the garbage dumpsters are cheaper. Had mom listened to us over the years alot of the precious antiques could have been saved instead of ending up as landfill. Being the neice of a fireman and a 5 times breast cancer survivor i can tell you this: Plastic melts faster and hotter than cardboard does. BUT plastic containers are harder to ignite if stored the proper way. Cardboard will ignite extremely quickly and it only takes a spark. what does not ignite will mold. Many molds cause cancer of various types. i hope this helps

marie_cate: Thanks for the bike-shop suggestion! I was on a road trip w/ DD to visit colleges the weekend after I posted, so I used some of the internet time I had at the hotel to e-mail a bunch of bike shops in Queens. One of them called on the next Monday and promised to save all his boxes. They were perfect! I split them and unfolded them, and they stood up!! and the Nerf party was a genuine success. So I know what to do for next year. We passed out business cards from the shop, and I'm going to e-mail him some of the photos. Thanks for all the ideas. I thought you might want to know what had worked.