I recently bought a house and have dedicated myself (and hubby) to saving kitchen scraps and waste paper for composting. Problem is, we haven't really come up with a garden plan, so can't decide where to start a compost pile.

As I sit here shredding waste paper into a cardboard box for future use as plant mulch, I wonder why a person couldn't just compost directly in a cardboard box??

It would seem to me, that a correct ratio of "brown" shredded paper, "green" kitchen scraps, and a couple shovel-fulls of dirt ripe with worms, molds and other decomposers ought to break down just fine. A person could even go through and flip the boxes now and then to keep the bottoms from rotting off entirely... or let them rot off and reclaim un-composted cardboard for the next batch.

In my case, I have regular access to boxes measuring 19.5" long by 13" deep by 15" tall when closed. They could be stacked together to encourage heat production.

Am I right?... or crazy?

You certainly could do something like that. You might wish to punch a few big holes in the sides to encourage air exchange. Compost needs to breathe and I don't know that a closed box (especially if it's damp) will allow enough air.

A decade or so back I remember a thing about composting in paper grocery bags. I don't know what the result was exactly--I think it was pretty mediocre so the whole thing pretty much faded away.

I think the main argument against composting in a cardboard box is that compost piles tend to work better if they're BIG--minimum 3 feet in every dimension. Even if you stack boxes next to each other it isn't the same--materials won't mix easily, and the cardboard will form a barrier.

Do you have a shady spot where not much grows (you won't want to put a garden there anyhow), or a stump that needs to get rotted, or a weedy spot that you don't like? Those would be good places to start a pile.

I would certainly tend towards just setting up a simple wire fencing compost bin in one of those types of spots and starting your pile there.

I don't think you'd be able to move the boxes of compost materials around once wet & mixed. You could use your boxes for storing shredded paper dry until you create a large pile outside somewhere.

Another use for boxes is layering over turf then add compost in the boxes on top of the sheet of cardboard. In 6 months or so you'll be able to plant in the boxes. We used new boxes as raised beds for potatoes & it helped keep the mulch in place as we hilled them.