10 Ways to Reduce Fluffy’s Carbon Pawprint
Let’s say you’re actively working on decreasing your carbon footprint. You pack your groceries in hemp bags, walk instead of drive and meticulously recycle. But what about Fluffy? What’s your cat’s carbon pawprint?
Cats are not particularly environmentally friendly pets, but there are things you can do to live green (or at least, a little greener) with your cat. It’s not necessarily easy, and I can’t guarantee that Fluffy will cooperate. But if you can even make just a couple of the following changes in your feline’s lifestyle, you can make a pawsitive impact on the environment over the life of your cat.
And if you keep the three R’s in mind–Reduce, Reuse, Recycle–you’re likely to find additional ways to live greener with your cat.
1. Forego Fish
Generally speaking, fish is not healthy for your cat. Mercury levels can prove deadly, and fish is the source of many urinary tract and thyroid problems.
But feeding Fluffy fish is bad for the marine environment as well. The pet food industry uses 10% of the supply of wild forage fish in the world. Wild forage fish are at the base of the marine food chain, providing sustenance to everything above it. Wiping out populations of wild forage fish eliminates the food supply–either directly or indirectly–of just about everything in the ocean.
2. Make Homemade Cat Food from local organic ingredients
Okay, I can hear your chortles of, “yeah, right,” from here. But you can make it in weekly or twice-weekly batches and it won’t take any more time than a trip to the pet food store. What does this have to do with the environment?
- Commercial cat food packaging clutters landfill.
- Significant amounts of fossil fuel are expended in shipping the ingredients around the globe to commercial cat food processing plants.
- Fossil fuel is expended in shipping the final product to your pet food store.
An added bonus, you’ll be able to relax the next time a pet food recall is issued.
Keep in mind, it’s not as simple as boiling some chicken. Do some research before you start to ensure that your cat is getting all of the nutrients necessary for optimal health, and keep in mind that ingredients that are tasty to humans (onions, garlic, raisins) can prove lethal to Fluffy.
Now when all that homemade food makes its way through to the other end of your cat, you have to consider the impact the cat’s waste has on the environment…
3. Switch from Clay-based Cat Litter to a Plant-Based Alternative
Clumping clay-based cat litters are produced through strip mining, not an enviro-friendly process.
They contain bentonite which, when ingested can wreak havoc with your cat’s respiratory and intestinal systems. Clay-based litters produce a lot of dust, which contains silicon particles that have been established by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a known human carcinogen, A recent study found that clay-based litter silica dust in cats’ lungs, and that cats with respiratory disease had up to six times the amount of silica in their lungs as healthy cats.
Try plant-based alternatives (wheat, pine, corn, paper, etc), or a flushing cat litter box which uses permanent crystals that are washed clean while the waste is flushed with water (but read #4 first).
4. Don’t Flush That Poo! … Wait a Minute, Maybe Not!
This issue is complicated and controversial. So I’ll present the facts and leave you to make your own decision.
The main issue with flushing poo is that sea otters and cat feces are a lethal mix. Scientists and researchers have recently discovered a correlation between Toxoplasma gondii (a parasite only found in cat feces) and the
decrease in the sea otter population off the California Coast. T. gondii is not eradicated during the waste treatment process, and can eventually be ingested by sea otters with lethal consequences. In other words, flush cat poo, kill a sea otter.
But one can argue that waste that ends up in landfill is as bad for the environment as waste that ends up in our waterways. Clay-based litter does not break down in landfill, and some have claimed that the volume of cat litter in landfills is greater than that of diaper waste. Toxoplasma gondii in landfills can leach into the water supply. Seagulls frequent landfills and can transport Toxoplasma gondii to the ocean.
Does your head hurt, yet? What’s an environmentally-conscious cat owner to do?
Keep the following in mind:
- If your cat is a strictly indoor cat, it is unlikely that she has Toxoplasma gondii, and her poo is safe to flush.
- If you live more than 1000 miles from the sea, your flushed cat poo is unlikely to kill sea otters.
- If you use a flushing litter box that uses permanent crystals instead of clay-based litter, your solution is probably “greener” in the long run than depositing waste in landfill.
If you live in the western U.S. and your cats are not strictly indoor cats, click here for more info, then decide for yourself.
5. Use biodegradable disposal bags and litter box liners.
6. Don’t Buy Cat Litter That’s Packaged in Non-Recyclable Plastic
Hard to believe, but some name-brand litters are packaged in non-recyclable plastic tubs. If you’re set on buying plastic-packaged litter, look for the recycle icon before you head for the checkout counter. We make a habit of buying cardboard-boxed litter because I think it degrades more easily in landfill.
6. Spay/Neuter Your Pets
Because it’s the right thing to do.
7. Keep Your Cats Indoors.
Cats kill songbirds, and keeping them indoors keeps them away from birds. It will also keep your cat from ingesting vermin that have been poisoned by neighbors, eating snail bait, chugging antifreeze, and other outdoor hazards. If your cats absolutely have to go outdoors: 1) Keep them inside during the morning, the time when birds are most actively foraging for food and vulnerable to attack, and 2) Put lots of bells on their collars.
8. Embrace Sustainable Cat Furniture
- Buy furniture made of sustainable woods like bamboo or recycled cardboard materials.
- Don’t toss out ratty furniture; refurbish it. For example, revamp your old cat scratching post with new sisal (a really easy project).
- Buy local. Products that are locally grown and manufactured use far less fossil fuel than those transported from, say, China.
9. Create Back to Basics Cat Toys
Fancy battery-powered plastic cat toys are often no more appealing to your cat than a toilet paper roll and a length of clothesline or a rumpled ball of recycled foil. Grow your own catnip and stuff it into a hand-stitched fabric remnant. Build your cat a playhouse from old packing boxes. You’ll save money as well as the environment, and your cat will be none the wiser.
10. Adopt Rather Than Buy from a Breeder
If you have a particular breed in mind, you can adopt a cat from a breed rescue organization (like Siamese Rescue) rather than buying from a breeder. You’ll save a cat’s life, and you’ll decrease the demand for breeder-raised cats, thereby decreasing cat populations, which in turn diminishes cats’ impact on the environment.
Do you have any green-living tips to share? Leave them in the comments and we’ll publish the best this week.
Hi Skeezy, These are some great ideas to try out to help our environment!
Check with your local recycling folks. Here in Toronto, cat litter/ waste can go in with food scraps/ table waste (the green coloured bin) & be composted.
Okay the Woman laughed and said she does not make her own cat food. Her other cats refused to eat the homemade cat food… sigh…
We noticed right away that our new raw food is packaged in one single plastic bag and equals 18 cans of our other food!
I bet if we put our heads together we could come up with some fabulous new use for poo. I mean, we could just start a rumor that it cures cellulite.
We also don’t think it is healthy to let your cat be outdoors. If anyone wants to know how to make a toy with box and scissors ask one of us. Also, you can make a toy out of cat fur.
I posted a few tips on my blog about the 3 R’s as well.
For the cat food, there are some excellent books out there that offer recipes for balanced and nutritionally adequate food. Chef Skylar’s Open Restaurant group here on Catster has some recipes for treats and meals as well.
I submitted this, but it didn’t seem to work, so here we go again. If it’s a double post, feel free to delete one.
I posted a few tips for using the 3 R’s to find cat products on my blog. As for meals, there are some good cookbooks out there with nutritionally balanced, veterinarian-approved meal recipes. Skylar’s restaurant group on Catster also has some good treat and meal recipes.
7. (Keep your cat indoors) Update: It’s not that easy keeping cats indoors. If you do allow your cat outdoors then get a CatBib. The CatBib is a simple device that attaches to the cat’s collar and stops 81% (that’s 4 out of 5) of bird killing cats from catching birds. (Not all cats catch birds.) Field trial results published in Biological Conservation journal, July 2007. Audubon recommended using the CatBib “to save millions of birds” in their Jan-Feb 2008 magazine issue. Why don’t more people know about this?!
I did know all cats don’t catch birds. If your pet can’t go poo try giving it juice.
Grape juice by the way.
Hi family. I thought cats were pasting here!
Grapes can be bad for cats and dogs, so grape juice probably isn’t a good idea.
Fish is bad???
I love to eat tuna from the can. I only get about a spoonful once in a great while, i wonder if thats ok??? Yikes, i dont know what i would do without my tuna 
Hi everybody,
I´m writing from Brazil and I loved your blog. I have two cats and I´m concerned about their impact over the environment.
About the 11 tips you gave, I´m already doing 7, that´s great!
And I also have a blog for my two cats (Vendetta and Charlotte). I liked so much the tips that I posted about it and mentioned this website. Hope you can visit the blog sometime and enjoy it (it´s in portuguese, but you can use google translator).
See ya!
=^.^=
When mommy brushis us she puts our furs outside so maybe the birds will use it in a nest. I don’t know if thay use it or not.
We are still looking for an alternative to clay litter. So far the wheat litter is a bust.
Meowmy uses pine litter for us kitties. Our vet gave meowmy another idea for pine litter….use pellet stove pellets. It is 100% wood pellets with no chemicals. We love our pine litter!
We now use kitty litter made from rice by-products. It’s great in the compost heap. But I have to be frank and say Mummy hardly finds the time to make her own food, let alone make cat food – can’t see that one happening.
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In the days when our cats were out during the day and in at night, we had one hunter who moved so smoothly the mutliple bells didn’t ring until she pounced which would have been a bit late except our dog Andromeda knew we didn’t like the cats chasing birds, so she would intercept and it would be the cat who was caught. Andromeda adored her cats, but they weren’t allowed to hurt anything, even mice would be rescued and bought to us for release.
I just want to add a comment to the comment about keeping cats indoors. My cat was a feral kitty and therefore cannot stand being indoors. She goes crazy but I hated letting her out because she was killing birds. I tried bells on her collar and they did not work. She was too stealthy. I only let her out during the day, and not in the AM, but I found a product that works and has prevented her from killing birds while still allowing her to freely enjoy the outdoors and do everything she normally does. It’s called the Cat Bib. I am a bird loving cat owner so dead birds on my porch was very distressing to me. The Cat Bib is endorsed by the Audobon Society because it is proven to protect birds from cats while still allowing cats to enjoy the outdoors and do everything they normally do. I was very skeptical, especially because it was so inexpensive (plus free shipping) and it didn’t seem possible that something as simple as a lightweight neoprene bib would save birds, but let me tell you, since wearing the bib she is as happy as ever and still spends all day outdoors and NO DEAD BIRDS on my porch. She was killing three a day before wearing this. It works! The bib wraps around your kitty’s collar with a velcro strap. It is safe as long as you use a breakaway collar. I already lost it once when the collar broke away, and hence the bib, but later found it in the bushes. It is very ligthweigth and your kitty may at first try to ‘walk over it’ but eventually gets used to it. In fact, now my kitty likes it because she knows when I put it on her collar it means she gets to go outside. It’s washable so every night I take it off and hand wash it and leave it out to dry until the next day. It’s the same material as a wetsuit. Plus it’s brightly colored so this also helps birds to see the cat sneaking up on it. The bib acts as a sort of “wall barrier” that lifts up as your kitty goes to pounce thus giving it the extra time it needs to get away. I’m a true believer of this product because I have seen for myself that it works, and while some cats just cannot be kept indoors no matter how hard you try, and while you can’t change a kitty’s natural instinct to hunt, you can help birdies while also allowing your kitty to still enjoy the outdoors and do what it does naturally. Plus, the bright colors hopefully will keep your cat safer from cars as they are more easily seen outside when wearing this product. Cat Bib is the name of the product…if you google it you will find the website…i think it’s catgoods.com.
skeezymom,
can you recommend or compare any of the non clay litters?
I don’t quite understand this post “Update: It’s not that easy keeping cats indoors.” It seems easy to me. (1) don’t install cat doors and (2) don’t let the cat out the door. I would LIKE to go outside but my Mom says “no” and I back away from the door. How much easier is it that that?