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This list really surprises me. So many food items that people think you CAN'T compost? The only things we DON'T compost in culinary school are plastic, aluminum foil and large amounts of parchment paper. Pretty much anything edible (or formerly edible, or non-edible parts of edible things- such as egg shells) gets thrown in the compost.

What you can and cannot compost depends a little on the size of your compost heap. For most people, greasy pizza boxes are a bad idea, cheese is a bad idea, and wine corks won't decompose until the next century. If you have a huge compost pile, it will get hot enough fast enough to break down all those things - hell, I read on a compost listserve the story of guy who composted a whole hog carcass. He had a farm, and his compost heap was huge enough to handle it. The compost pile of the average family will not be. I bet a culinary school produces waaaay more waste than a single family and can handle greasy waste (although not a whole hog). I wouldn't apply culinary school compost experiences to the general population.

I'm interested to read about the corks. I had asked about this last year on some blog (it might have been Re-Nest, in fact) and was told there could be some nasty chemicals in them (don't remember what it was). But...I confess...I compost them anyway. I figure if I'm willing to drink the wine they were bottled with, I should deal with the compounds in the compost.

I always thought dairy couldn't be put in a compost.

I didn't know walnut shells could be toxic to other plants. That's just weird.

How much salt can actually go in my compost pile? Salt content is why I don't put stuff like rice and Saltines in my compost.

And I never would've thought condoms could go in a compost pile...

But I think that's about it. I do compost a lot of the rest of that list.

Pizza boxes are one of my favorite things to compost - they are my preferred lining for the compost box. They usually don't get too greasy since the pizza gets eaten right away and I don't use the box to store the extras since it takes up a lot of fridge space. And if it's corrugated, the gaps allow air to get through and it actually composts much faster than, say, newspaper.