Reusing wood-based cat litter as heating fuel?
We’ve covered wood-based cat litter before but we’ve had a rather unusual email from Simon and I thought it was worth returning to the topic:
I’m e-mailing from an independent animal sanctuary in Northern Ireland.
We have about 100 cats here all using wood chip litter and would probably skip at least 100 litres a week. Do you know a way of turning the used litter (poo-free!) into burning fuel, and would that be more environmentally friendly than oil? I’ve experimented trying to compact it into short pieces of sewage pipe, but the problem is keeping the litter in one block.
To give you an idea, we would spend about £2000 a quarter during the winter on heating kennels and catteries electrically.
I’d be grateful for any suggestions, even if it’s to say “For Christ’s sake, what are you thinking man?” as it feels like we could be using this used litter for producing heat.
I tempted to say “For Christ’s sake, what are you thinking man?” just for the humour but I can see where he’s going with this. I guess it would be particularly galling if you had a biomass boiler or stove for heating: throwing away all those wood chips only to buy different ones back for burning.
This is basically an appeal for help/information/tips anything that might get Simon started on his way or conversely warn him off the plan if it’s unsound.
Anyone know if this is viable? As Simon says, the litter is poo-free but I presume it’s been wee-ed on – would that cause any problems for burning?
Any suggestions on how to make logs stick together or make pellets?
I hear that biomass boilers/stoves are quite expensive to install – anyone had any experience with this? Anything special Simon needs to consider?
Maybe stick it together in blocks with wax (like paraffin or soy, etc.) or some other reasonably safely flammable material? I think that’s more or less what they do with java logs, which are coffee grounds made into logs for burning.
It might not smell so great when burned if the litter’s been really soiled, though…
I would think it would do pretty well in a wood pellet stove, like the ones here:
http://www.nevelsstoves.com/breckwellstoves/Breckwell_pellet_stoves.html
The pellets they use are not unlike the pellet cat litter, as long as it was dry, it should work fine.
We use “Yesterday’s News” cat litter, which is pellets made from newspaper. It goes into our Swedish tile stove after a nice bed of hot coals has been made with wood, and the moisture content of the pee and poo is quickly driven off followed by a nice flame that reduces everything to a fine white ash. Saves the tipping fee at our local recycling center and saves wood as well.
This might be a completely rubbish idea – or i haven’t understood properly, but couldn’t you pack it into cardboard tubes (you can get small ones from wrapping paper, and i have seen bigger ones, but i’m not too sure where to find them – probably waste from a factory or somewhere where they need long rolls of stuff- you could research it a bit maybe) and then throw the whole lot in (fix something over the end -maybe newspaper) ?
hope this helps
I’ve seen just the thing on Amazon – a log maker for approx £20 that can take sawdust, amongst other things.
Hi,
I too have wood based cat litter which is Poo free. All I do is tip the sawdust into paper potato sacks or animal feed sacks (must be paper) size to suit you stove and chuck it on a hot base of glowing embers (Hunter Herald 8 wood burning stove) Et Voila, free heat. It glows for ages and when it glows its hot. I also pack the soiled sawdust into empty cardboard food boxes (jaffa cakes etc..) and chuck it on fire but either wera disposable gloves or wash hands straight after.
Cheers