I use newspaper and cardboard to do my own version of lasagna gardening. I've heard that dyes on magazines and ads can possibly be dangerous to plants, but not 100% sure of that.

If you were to shred your mail and use it as mulch it would probably blow right away. You would have to keep it wet constantly.

You could, however, put a layer of the shredded mail down first, then cover with mulch, or soil/compost.

Ok, so I'll avoid using any full-color or glossy paper and stick with black and white print.

I'm hoping when the shredded paper gets wet it will stick together and not blow away as much. Even if it dries I am hoping it will stick together a little.

It will stick together some - b/c i threw some down in my compost bin (that STILL doesn't have a lid b/c my DH hasn't gotten around to it). However, I have had more success with spreading it UNDER a layer of mulch. I do this often - saving newspaper, and all sorts of junk mail - shread it and then put under the mulch.

I also put a fairly thick layer of this shredded stuff in the bottom of pots before putting in the potting soil mixture. First some dry leaves, then paper, then soil.

I too put out a lot of shredded paper and mix in soil, peat moss, etc. (I do cover it with a top layer of soil or manure so no one in the neighborhood can see the shredded paper pieces.) Last year it only took a couple of months to completely break down.

(I tried it in a temporary bed and when I dug up everything, the strips of clear plastic from envelope windows was the only clue of its "junk mail" nature.)

It's great recycling!

Many of the garden sites I visited seem to think that all ink today is made from soy. This is a gross misconception. Soy inks are no safer than conventional oxidizing sheetfed inks. The only difference in the two is the type of vegetable oils used as pigment vehicles. The driers (cobalt and manganese) and the colored pigments are the same. These are the hazardous materials in the ink formula that could leach out of the soil into the ground water.

Interestingly, superiorinkco registered March 21, 2007, & a search of the forums reveals 3 posts by him/her, all on Frugal Gardening, all nearly identical in wording, & all posted on threads that started in 2005.

For detailed discussions of soy inks & the like, I highly recommend the Soil Compost & Mulch Forums.

Here is a link that might be useful: superiorinkco's posts