- Share This Post
- submit
- 9
-
Sparkle (0)
I don't have cats, but did get a sample of the newish Arm & Hammer Essentials Clumping Cat Litter -- and so gave it to my cat-owning friend Summer to review it for me. That little decision's ended up being a huge time sucker, namely because there doesn't seem to be a clear answer to this question: What's the most environmentally sound way to dispose of used cat litter?
Pose this question to 10 kitty-owning environmentalists, and you'll likely get 10 different answers. Sure, they'll all agree that conventional clay cat litter's not the best way to go, since that clay comes via strip mining. But that's about where the agreements end.
The kitty litter conundrum stems from the fact that cats can carry toxoplasma gondii -- a parasite that can be passed to humans or other animals via cat feces. Basically, different kitty owners have differing opinions as to how dangerous this toxo risk is -- leading to the very varied recommended methods for eco-disposal of cat doodoo.
Some say flush the stuff, whether by training your cat to poop directly into the toilet, or by using a biodegradable and flushable kitty litter. However, the Sea Otter Alliance urges people not to do this, since otters can get toxoplasmosis and die. In fact, this otter death issue was the impetus behind the new Jan. 2007 law in California, requiring companies to put a warning on kitty litter packaging about the dangers of flushing cat poop.
Other environmentalists recommend composting or burying the stuff -- but of course, you then run the risk of infecting your garden and groundwater with toxo. The Sea Otter Alliance goes so far as to urge cat owners to keep their pets indoors AND to remove cat poop from their yard: "Toxo “eggs” last for months in soil and can move into rivers and oceans during the rainy season."
Yet some environmentalists feel it's their green duty to ignore this warning. The Green Lantern at Slate summarizes their arguments thusly:
Skeptics have pointed out that cats haven't definitively been identified as the culprit [for otter deaths]. They note that only 1 percent of cat feces samples in one recent study carried Toxoplasma, that indoor cats are especially unlikely to catch the parasite, and that many infected otters may actually be dying of other causes. It's also not clear how much Toxoplasma affects other kinds of marine life.
The Lantern concludes that as long as the cats remain indoors and proper precautions are taken, flushing's permissible. That's what environmentalist Beth at Fake Plastic Fish does -- after having had her cats test negative for toxo.
Those who let their cats outside or who are still leery about the toxo concerns are left with the landfill, which every environment loathes sending stuff to. Certainly, the thought of all that toxo-contaminated cat poop piling up in trash dumps day after day, week after week, year after year's pretty depressing. Plus, if one's gone out of her way to buy eco-friendly, biodegradable kitty litter, sending the stuff to a landfill where biodegrading's unlikely seems rather pointless.
Some cat owners will argue that landfilling cat poop's no safer for humans and animals, since landfills can leach stuff into the groundwater too -- so toxo could get into our environment anyway. After all, environmentalists try to preach that you can't throw something away because there's no such thing as "away" -- since we're all connected. Landfilling kitty litter, thus, seems a rather undesirable short term solution to the dirty problem of cat poop....
All the reading up I've done on cat poop has given me no definitive answers, but has definitely grossed me out and scared me off of ever owning a cat -- even if I suddenly stopped being allergic to them. Those felines seem like pretty nasty creatures on the inside, though cute on the outside --
About the Arm & Hammer litter itself? Well, the enviro specs look good, since the biodegradable litter's made with 91.35% renewable materials (87% from corncobs) and has half the density of clumping clay litters (less to recycle). However, the litter did not get a good review from Summer's household. Though the litter reportedly clumped well, it also has a very strong, synthetic smell akin to artificial air fresheners. Unfortunately, that powerful perfume did not effectively mask the smell of cat poop itself -- so the litterbox emitted two funky smells at once.
For less
