Shredding Cardboard for CompostĪt certain times of the year you find yourself with a lot of wet, “green” compost material and very little dry “brown” matter such as dry leaves, branches, and twigs. It makes a good “ brown material ” when nothing else is available. However, cardboard breaks down well, and adds structure to any compost mix. Foliage is rich in nutrients, whereas processed card will add fewer benefits to the end result. Dry leaves are far better than cardboard. On a side note, cardboard is not a perfect material for composting. So I decided to investigate the best way to shred cardboard, or whether there was an alternative to all that hard work. But if you want to get the benefit of this abundant material for use in your compost, you need some kind of method for dealing with it. Shredding cardboard can be a very time consuming and manual process. Wetting the card beforehand can also be a big help. Cutting along the corrugated lines will make work easier. Flatten the cardboard on a large surface before cutting into strips with a box cutter. So how do you shred cardboard for compost? Ideally, you need to remove any plastic from cardboard packaging before putting it in a compost bin.

When you’ve done this a few times you naturally start to wonder what’s the ideal solution. I sometimes find myself facing a huge heap of cardboard boxes that need cutting and shredding in preparation for the compost bin. But handling large amounts of packaging and boxes can be tricky. Using shredded card in compost is a well known solution.

Cardboard is an excellent substitute for carbon rich, brown matter when you can’t find dry plant material.

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