Composting glazed ceramic

Hi all

The bottom of my dutch oven met an untimely end this week. As far as I can tell it's some sort of glazed ceramic. I have it my head somewhere I read that unglazed terracotta can be crushed up and buried and it probably doesn't do much good but probably doesn't do much harm (partially porus so perhaps retains some moisture or perhaps that's wishful thinking). Just wondering if there's any merit to crushing it into the garden (or should I be worried about the glaze messing with my soil). I have a bunch of broken crockery that will eventually find it's way into some sort of mosaic so might find it's way into that pile but it's more my curiosity. Is it something that you can crush down and refire into something new? Any clue on how they are glazed?

Also wondering about a large quantity of toilets? Besides turning them into some "chic" art could they be crushed down and spread around fruit trees or something like that. In my research haven't found anything interesting to follow up on in this regard.

Cheers

Broken (presumably unglazed) pottery is or was one of the ingredients in terra preta, so it could definitely help with water retention. Suppose the glaze might diminish that effect though, since it will make one (or both?) sides of each shard impervious to water. I don't know if the glaze would do something nasty in the soil, suppose it depends what they used to make it. Some old glazes contain fairly nasty stuff, I think. Seem to remember that old, bright yellow ceramic might contain cadmium, and some other types contain lead. How old was it? Hopefully they wouldn't knowingly put toxic heavy metals in a cooking implement in this day and age, but you never know...

Terra preta does contain broken pottery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta

Although technically, all ceramics are made of clay, which is pretty much dirt, and therefore should be fine in a compost heap, there are a few obstacles that might prevent you from putting it there.

https://potterywiz.com/is-ceramic-pottery-recyclable/

That article goes on to say that while the clay is a mineral it is not organic so it will not naturally break down in the compost pile.

The glaze is essentially a type of paint, and you probably don’t want traces of paint in your compost. On that note, some commercial clays contain synthetic additives that might pose the same problem.

Crushing broken pieces of glazed ceramic is a great way to get rid of them and if there is a large amount of land then the glaze is distributed over a large area so this is a good way for landfills to process them.

If it were me, I might crush it and send it to a landfill for further processing.  

Jared said, "I have a bunch of broken crockery that will eventually find it's way into some sort of mosaic so might find it's way into that pile

Best idea!  I love mosaics.

i have a lot of broken pottery around- while broken clay tiles (fired but unglazed) go into my garden beds and seem to eventually break down indeed (more along the lines of terra preta- these tiles are made of our local red clay), fired/glazed porcelain does not break down unless I take a hammer to it.
So that is exactly what I do- I have a "stone" path made of 90% broken crockery: I don't have to buy stones, and my broken dishes didn't go to the landfill. You need to methodically crush it-- if you can, tumble it- the edges are SHARP. If you're talking toilets that is doubly true. If I had a tumbler I would put my broken glass in there too, but alas I don't.