Cat Litters

Biodegradable litters are made from various plant resources, including pine wood pellets, recycled newspaper, clumping sawdust, brazilian cassava, barley, okara and dried orange peel.

Each year, over 2 million tons of cat litter, or approximately 100,000 truckloads, ends up in landfills in the U.S. alone. Primarily this is not biodegradable or renewable and adds unnecessarily to the waste burden. Some pet owners prefer biodegradable litters due to its friendliness to the environment. Biodegradable cat litter can also be eliminated completely by safely composting the used litter at home. Other cat owners can be attracted to the biodegradable litters because of their flushability or deodorizing properties. The natural litters are non-carcinogenic. Asthmatic cats may sometimes benefit from the reduced dust in some forms of biodegradable litter.

Biodegradable litter packaged specifically for cats tends to be more expensive than traditional clay litters, so cost is often not a positive factor in their selection. But most biodegradable litters last longer than the equivalent size of clay or clumping clay litters. Grain-based animal or poultry feed also provides an economical alternative to products marketed specifically as cat litter. Also, most of these forms of litter are recycled from human usage and are thus reusing a waste product as opposed to drawing clay from mines.