composting paper towels

Hi i,m wondering wether or not you can put used paper towels on the compost heap or not. We go through loads at work throught drying our hands  but not sure wether they will be contaminated or not, any suggestions ? cheers Elfy

No probs in principle - will add a lot of 'browns' to your heap. Just be careful that your company is not required to leave an audit trail when it disposes of them, or that they have to be bagged seperately, or else they could face fines.

I can feel a rant coming on over yellow bags - there's stuff that you can put in domestic 'black bags' which I have to put in yellow bags when at work, and pay extra for, and leave a paper audit trail. They go into landfill just the same mind you, the only difference is that they come off the lorry first, and 'go into the hole first'. It's a mad. mad world.

Anything that goes into yellow bags should never go into land fill it should be sent for incineration as its classed as bio hazard. Yellow bags are used for things like dead animals, anything that has blood or other body fluids on.

@ thecakebaker - well it's nice to know that the premium that I'm paying isn't just for landfill - obviously I misunderstood the "really simple to understand" regulations! It's still annoying that stuff that a householder can throw into a normal black bag has to be treated differently by a small business.


Edit: Just checked - it's the yellow bags with a black stripe that are permitted to be landfilled in an approved fashion (which I was told just meant them going in the ground first, although maybe that was just to wind me up!) - seems like what I called yellow bags should have read tiger bags - apologies for the confusion!