Kitty litter options…
By Jenn (TinyChoices.com) | July 24, 2007
Ever since Samson the Cat came to live with me, I’ve wondered what I really should be doing about his litterbox. I know that the generic clay cat litter, which is inexpensive and available in every corner store here in NYC, is strip-mined. It’s also a known carcinogen in humans, and can cause respiratory infections. What? Hello? Geez.
So, there are alternatives. Litter made from pine tree by-products (plus a special litterbox, which seems pretty handy, though it might be made from virgin plastic). Litter made from corn by-products. Litter made from recycled newspaper. Litter made from wheat by-products (they also sell a totally biodegradable litter box, which, depite being greenmarketed as biodegradable, is incredibly wasteful and resource intensive). Litter made from silica gel “pearls” (anyone have eco-info on this?)
So– lots of options. Problem is, living without a car in Brooklyn, it’s an insane painindabutt to get to an upscale pet store anywhere near my home, purchase one of these options, and schlep home a giant bag of alterna-litter. But now I’m determined to make a switch, and to use my lovely new bike basket for the task. Or perhaps I’ll try to get it delivered, though I’m not sure if any local shoppe will deliver yuppie litter in my neighborhood.
Quite honestly, I’ve been tempted to potty train the boy for years now (click for video of a cat pooping in a toilet…you’ve been warned). He is a smartie-pants and I know he’d pick it up right away… and I truly believe we’d both be better off without having to rely on me to clean the litterbox. Plus– zero waste (and zero cashola)! My inspiration is Misha the wonder cat, who made it look so easy… anyone have personal experience with this?
Maybe I’ll just send Sam into orbit, instead.
Further reading:
- The eco-brilliant Umbra (the Greenie version of Dear Abbey) takes on the question of cat litter.
- An informative article on the subject
- A slightly outdated but incredibly through listing of alterna-litter
Topics: Home, Waste | 20 Comments »
I’ve personally tried the recycled newspaper and pine by-product litters, to no avail. I had to change the recycled newspaper stuff tremendously often and the pine by-product just didn’t perform as well as promised (and again, they used way more of it than the clumping stuff).
I know clay is bad, but am currently using PetSmart’s refillable clumping litter because at least I don’t end up with a zillion plastic kittly litter buckets at the end of the day. I don’t know if one of these 30-ish pound buckets will fit in your bike basket, but until my 2 cats get potty trained (which is never, considering that they are already set in their ways), It’s the workable “tiny choice” that I am living with.
You know, after I wrote that post I realized that, years ago, I too had tried a few of the green products — the same ones as you, plus the wheat-type — to no pleasant, nor good-smelling, avail. Which is why I promptly forgot about them and resigned myself to the clay litter. I just feel like I need to give alternalitter another shot… but I do think I’ll give the potty-training bit a go before the end of the year. That will be an experience! And props to you for your tiny choice. :)
I did some wiki-research on silica gel – it’s made from the same kind of stuff as you find in those “do not eat” desiccant packages that come with sneakers and high-end electronics. Apparently it’s toxic because of the dopants involved (not pronounced DO PANTS but DOPE ANTS, ha!) which are also used in the creation of superconductors – to modify the crystalline lattice structure to change the optical or electrical properties.
(ha, DO PANTS.)
I’m not saying the silica gel kitty litter is toxic, but I am saying maybe that’s something to read more about before purchasing…
yay for tiny choices! i guess i’m lucky with my cat, tigerlilli. i switched her to yesterday’s news about 8 months ago with no problems. we went (ha, i love saying ‘we’ about me and my cat!) from ‘super clump/lo-track’ litter straight to the newspaper. luckily tiger didn’t put up a fuss. since she’s an only cat, i don’t have to really worry about funky-ness for about a week of regular cleaning… i’ve always wanted to potty train, but could never get my cats to stop drinking from the toilet – god forbid they got thirsty after, well, you know.
Maybe it’s time for me to try an alterna-litter again – cleaning up after my cats is, hands down, the thing that bothers me the most in my quest to be more environmentally friendly. We use clay litter from PetCo (the refillable-carton kind) and any plastic bags we end up with are saved for scooping the poop.
My main problem is – one of my cats is SUPER finicky about his bathroom habits. He will use the floor rather than use a box that does not satisfy him, and a box that does not satisfy him can include “a box that hasn’t been scooped since two hours ago” and most definitely includes “a box filled with litter I do not like.” He actually got so bad at one point that, by vet’s orders, we shut him up in a room with a bunch of different boxes of different kinds of litters to see which kind he would use. And he way, way favored PetCo and I’ve been afraid to try anything else since then. But that was two years ago, and he hasn’t been too problematic with his litter habits lately, so maybe I should try swapping the contents of one of the boxes for something a little more kind to the earth and his lungs?
Here is one thing I would love to hear about from other cat owners – if you’re scooping and throwing away, how do you collect it? I haven’t been able to figure out how to get around using plastic bags for that. I would love love love to do away with plastic bags entirely, but it’s the one place I can’t think of an alternative.
Jessica– the only solution I can come up with for this is to scoop directly into the household garbage can, then take out the trash every day. I have a tiny kitchen can so this might work, though I’m not really sure I want cat poop in my kitchen garbage can, even if for less than 24 hrs. Of course, then I’d be taking out the garbage more frequently, which leads to the topic of a future post– I’d really need to start using renewable-based compostable garbage bags…
However if you’re using (or can switch to, despite Mr. Finicky Cat) a scoopable/flushable litter, you could scoop into a small container then go flush the poop, and keep the container/scoop together for use every day. I was using flushable litter for awhile and that worked for me.
first, let me just say that i’m officially addicted to this blog.
ok, now on to the cat litter issue. we’ve got 5 cats (rescues, of course) … we’ve tried to use the kind that somehow absorbs(?) the liquid and then you only have to scoop out the actual poop (this might be true clay litter). some of the cats don’t mind this litter, the others sound like mr finicky above. based on that, i can’t image the alternative stuff going over too well. plus, if the dogs ever got into the cat room i’m betting the dalmation would go WILD over the wheat litter (not to mention her affinity for cat poop!) so, we are sticking with the scoopable for now. :(
as for scooping, though. i try my best to drag the kitchen garbage around with me for the daily scooping event. sometimes, i’m lazy and just use a plastic bag. i have found that if you keep a sealable plastic box (i.e. one of the empty litter containers) next to the litter boxes you can keep several days of scoopings in one plastic bag in that box – without too much smelliness.
i’ve also found that daily (or more frequent) scooping helps the litter last longer. if we let it go too long, we get too stinky and have to change out the whole darn box.
ok, one final thing, i got an email the other day about a littler box that does all the scooping for you AND is hooked up to the sewer line. it’s a toilet for cats … minus the bowl of water. i’m not sure this contraption works but it’s a one hell of an (expensive) idea!
Cat Genie
(and my defense of this looooooooong response to an old post: i’m a cat person. we just can’t help ourselves when it comes to the cat topics.)
Hey Cat, that CatGenie looks so amazing! And if it weren’t a bazillion dollars I would totally try it! And also, what exactly do you think is in the SaniSolution and Washable Granules? I dunno, but it can’t be eco… ;)
for those cat lovers out there, we’ve totally switched over to the (kinda expensive) swheat litter.
i think it does require daily scooping (at a minimum) and a little bit of baking soda added helps to keep any odors down.
however, the dalmatian does in fact LOOOOOOOVE to eat this litter. it’s so gross, i can’t even type about it any longer.
nonetheless, we are sticking with this choice and have moved the litter boxes around again in the hopes that we can keep that dog out of there!
I’ve switched to using those corn-based dog poop bags, which are supposedly biodegradable. Also, I use Swheat scoop, which is probably the best-smelling, enviro-friendly option I’ve found. Living in a tiny apartment makes odor issues a big challenge.
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I am doing a research proj. for a design class. It’s comparing various litters & boxes, with an emphasis on ecologically sound solutions (plus I’m a true “cat person” w/ 9 little angels(?!). So far, one product “litter kwitter”, a step based toilet training system that uses flushable litter in the beginning steps, looks like a POSSIBLE solution (no litter – eventually, ), no smell, no dust, no poops thrown out & about, and no odor. This contraption runs about $60.00. The other one is the “Cat Genie”. It scoops the poops, rinses urine out, dries the entire litter pan, and the litter is pretty much reused (you need to add a little, as some does get rinsed away). The company claims the litter is a mix of organic stuff and recycled plastics. I am going to contact several companies via e-mail & telephone for more info. Sorry for lengthy message. I’ll report back my findings.
awesome, Kris! we can’t wait to hear more about it.
ooooooooooooh – i definitely want to hear about your findings!! :)
We have one and it’s great – it takes a couple days for the cat to get used to it (like all new litterboxes) but after that it’s never touch the litterbox again – woot!
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