How can I reuse or recycle cat litter?
We’ve had an email from Andy Whittington about a subject that is close to my own heart (and nose):
We have two new feline housemates, and the accompanying cat litter with waste, does anyone have any idea how I can reuse/recycle this after the solid waste has been removed, and is the sawdust product more eco friendly than the porous stone chip version?
Congratulations on the new additions to your household Andy and welcome to the world of sitting on the floor because they’ve snagged the best chairs and refuse to be moved.
As I say on our sister site Compost This, it’s tempting to compost wood-based litter but poop parasites can cause a problem. Our garden is too small for multiple compost heaps but my mum and dad have a heap they just use for litter and accept that it’ll take ages to break down and not use it on their veg plot.
If the poo is, well, perfectly contained, then it’s less of a problem because it can be disposed of separately and the absorbed urine might actually help your compost heap because it’s nitrogen based. Just be careful to keep the heap balanced with other materials if you want it to breakdown in a reasonable time-frame.
I don’t know for sure about the eco-friendliness of the wood-based versus clay ones (does anyone else?) but I suspect (read: hope) that the former is a waste byproduct of the wood industry. It is also less likely to cause clumping issues for the cats. We’ve also tried recycled paper-based litters – they worked alright, just left the room smelling of damp paper – and if poo-free, could be composted like the wood ones.
Any other thoughts? Anyone know if the clay-based ones be used as aggregate in concrete or anything like that?
(Photo by mzacha)
I’m not sure what you can do if you struggle with composting size but the most “eco friendly” is Bio-Catolet.
It made from 100% recycled materials (paper based I think(, is compostable, nondust forming, non clumping, good at protecting agaisnt ordour and unlike other paperbased ones they are pellets and so dont “break apart” and mess up the house!
Also, talking from intense experience, it is good for very VERY fussy cats! I have two little terrors who wouldnt use anything but Tescos own brand that was dust forming and well..awful!
They took to the new one perfectly! The packaging is also paper so can be recycled unlike many that are plastic. It comes in at least 12ltrs & 25ltrs.
Hope that helps! ^-^
PS: it doesnt create the nasty damp paper smell :)
And yes…. congrats on having your cats and good luck with the 3 – 4 – 5am wake up calls for no reason other than they just wanted to! :p
I don’t have an answer for this, except to say that another reason to swich from the traditional clay types is that (from what I’ve read), the mining practices are really destructive.
We’ve been gradually switching our cat over to a pine-based litter with no problems (so far). She’s had litterbox problems in the past so I’m releived that she’s adjusting so well to this type.
this is gross! cat litter is disgusting anyway, why would anybody want to use it again.
if you don’t want to waste resources take the cat out! duuuuuuuh! you don’t see a dog peeing in a tray!
get a life!
much love
Because Barney McWhiskers some cats (like ours) have FIV and should not be allowed out incase they infect other cats or pick up other infections.
Also, if you’ve ever had a cat decide to use your flowerbed as a toilet you’d be encouraging all cat owners to use a tray.
Go figure – how often do you see piles of dog crap not picked up by irresponsible owners??????
To answer the comment “you don’t see a dog peeing in a tray” there are two reasons, dogs aint clever enough to do it on their own and their owners are too dumb to train them! Period.
I take it from your posting that you are a dog owner… figures…
all dog owners train their dogs and their dogs ask to go out.
you need to stop getting so annoyed about cat litter and stop saying figurs/go figure!
Insted of using the regular clay litter that you have to throw away use a organic litter. There’s a lot of different kinds, I recomend recycled wheat litter. It clumps well, is Biodegradable, and all you do is flush it away. Although some pets are allergic to wheat so a good alternitive is the pine litter. It works just as good as the wheat.(but depending on brand doesn’t mask the smell as well) I don’t recomend paper based because they’re not biodegratable
An old friend of mine used to use old litter to fill in the holes in her gravel driveway. Somehow exposure to the air took away the smell…
This is one of the most sensible recommendations laid out here.
Thank you!
I’d recommend Morrison’s recycled paper cat litter, which is cheap, odourless and the cat happily uses it. Then it goes on the compost heap.
On another tack, has anyone tried using shredded newspaper? It seems a bit pointless to carefully send off our old papers for recycling, and then buy in the same stuff after it’s been processed. I think I’ll try cutting out the middleman, and see how that works out.
Hi Ann,
We tried that the other week when we ran out of litter one Sunday night. We got a pee on the rug in return.
I agree though it’s silly to add the middle step if it can be avoided though – all that fuel to move it back and forth. Perhaps it would work better if we’d gradually added the shredded paper to some litter that they’re more used to to wean them onto the different texture. I guess we’ll try again – but take the rug up first ;)
Do let us know how your attempt goes though :)
-louisa
responsible cat owners keep their cats indoors. It keeps them healthy and safe from the people walking their dogs who like to chase the cats who are also on leashes. I know this because I tried it. In return I have apermanent scar where my cat latched on in utter panic.
I can’t get my cat to use anything but clay.My vet told me that once a cat decides what it likes your stuck. I was wondering about the stink factor .I love my clumping because I can remove the stink without having to change the litter every two days which is what I had to do with the non clumping kind.can these alternative litters be used with that electronic litter box? How does that thing work anyway?I would think I’d have to use clumping clay for it to work anyway. Also is there a clumping alternative? My cat is so very picky about this litter being clean.
electronic trays need clumping litter to work – there is a metal rake type thing that scrapes through the soiled litter after the cat leaves (it’s timed) and the solid waste gets tipped into a little bucket or tray that you empty. They look fantastic, but soooo expensive!
I use Yesterday’s News recycled newspaper cat litter for our two indoor cats. It’s not the cheapest but you can buy in bulk online and it is delivered in a couple of days. Excellent product. I’d really like to scope out the lumps and compost the rest in our wormery. Has anyone tried this?
I use it and it’s fantastic – I like the fact that when we put it in the compost or as light mulch around trees, it’s not the first recycling it goes through.
But I am terribly terribly annoyed that it’s not locally produced but has to cross the ocean to get to me.
Hi
My wife runs a boarding cattery & we get loads of wood litter waste. I have converted our 4 bed house to operate totally on wood. I ripped out the central heating & we have a solid fuel rayburn in the kitchen, for cooking, heat & hot water. A large wood burning villager stove with outside chimney is in the lounge & burns wood also. No rads at all.
My wife puts any remains of trays with wood litter into seperate bags. I take these bags containing wood litter, cat poo & pee and spread them on a pile, under cover, well out of house/cattery reach. After about a month the smell goes & the poo has dried out. I then mix this lots with logs, any other wood & burn it on each of the fires. There is very little smoke smell &, as both fires are enclosed, none in the house. I get my wood from cattery customers who would rather give it to me than put into landfill. I suppose I am therefore carbon neutral.
Roaring up both fires (chimneys red hot!!) as a test with outside temperature at “-2C”, the downstairs temp measures at floor level reached 27C, upstairs ceiling temp was 36C. Thus no problems with heating house. I keep rayburn going with litter only in summer giving us hot water at 70C throughout + some cooking.
I save about black 14 bags of wood litter a week going to landfill. I burn at 220C min flue temp so no tar.
Saves us about £1000 a year in house heating/hot water/cooking.
I am a control engineer, so have temperature measurement points everywhere so I can tweak things!!
Any questions will be answered including installation costs etc + windmill/solar possibilityquestions.
regards
keith baldwin, Iris’s animal farm (cattery) chepstow, Mon wales
Keith (and anybody else who might be able to help);
I have 22 cats, all FIV positive, it’s a sanctuary really. The issue of the used wooden cat litter has been bothering me for ages and I’d love to hear more about using it in stoves etc.
Paddy
I have a paper shredder , that shreds paper about 1″ x 1/8″, was thinking of shredding all letters(especially bills :-) ), news papers and anything else shreddable , and was going to use this in the cats tray as litter – would this be ok for the cats??
thanks
May I recommend a lovely invention by a woman in Australia? She’s invented The Litter Kwitter which is for kitties young AND old. Stubbon or multiple cat households? Her newest add-on – Multi kit – does wonders for mid-life training.
No more litter to be bothered with.
Visit her site (which I listed in the 411 area of this post) http://www.litterkwitter.com
I stopped using cat litter years ago. I take the bus, so the big bags where a pain to carry home and up stairs. So i tryed simply getting dry dirt from outside and mixed it with a little cat-friendly baking soda. The cat prefers it to litter! It has a little clumping affect so i might have a little clay in the soil. But it works great!
When its time to change litter, i put the litter at an oposite area of the yard then my veggies are at. It keeps the racoons away too! seems to work great!
I always flush the solids down the loo, so only have the wet wood litter to dispose of. Often wondered what to do with it, so might have a go at composting it separately to my home compost.
What about taking it down the fields and disposing of it under the hedges?
Maybe my cats aren’t too fussy but they show no preference for cat litter at all, they will use anything. I am going to try shreddings, so will let you know what happens!!!
The answer to reusing cat litter for me has been really simple. Of course I live in Southern California with lots of dry sun days … but it could work elsewhere much of the year. I have a cardboard box in the yard and after taking out the solids, I dump the cat litter in it and let the sun bake out the wet and the smells. Meantime I have another batch in use in the house for the cat. After 3-4 days, I just switch them. So far I have used the same cat litter batches for MONTHS (since I experimented with this method which seemed logical). Trust me, if any smell was coming from the reused litter, which is in the bathroom off the master bedroom, it would be intolerable. But it is fresh as new and the cat is happy too!
Ooops, in writeup just left about re-using kitty litter (sun bake it fresh!) obviously it has to be the non-clumping type! This is SO environmentally friendly! Never buy cat litter again I am hoping.