Subject: Re: Cat Litter Disposal?

From: [email-masked] (Ruth Evans)
Date: Tue, 21 Mar 95 15:50:05

>On 14 Mar 1995, Richard Vialls wrote:

>> [email-masked] (Robert Gilmore) wrote:
>>
>> > I have two cats and want to know the best way of disposing of their
>> > cat litter. It's Fuller Earth stuff. Is it any use in the garden, o
>it
>> > be composted or something. Or should I continue to send out out wit
>trash.
>>
>> Why not buy the compressed sawdust pellets. I use these and find they
>> are even better than Fuller's Earth as they smell less. My cat seems
>> to prefer them as well. They can be composted, flushed down the
>> toilet, or burned and they also have the advantage that they are made
>> from a waste product - so being more environmentally freindly.

My cat HATED the stuff and I had to contend with spots on the floor and
carpets.  It wasn't worth it.

Ruth Evans
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From: [email-masked] (Deborah Pearce)
Date: Sat, 25 Mar 1995 01:05:21 GMT

>>> > be composted or something. Or should I continue to send out out wit

Cat litter should not be composted or used in the garden, particularly with 
food gardens.  Cats and dogs both share a significant number of infectious 
diseases with humans; using their litter can pass germs back to humans.  Of 
course, we and our pets share the same possibility of infecting each other by 
living together as with other people, but putting those possible germs in an 
environment where we're going to be getting our hands dirty and probably 
rubbing our noses or faces while gardening increases the possibility of 
transmitting the germs to ourselves.  I sometimes use the kitty litter to fill 
in sink holes in my yard since I have to intention of digging in them in the 
future; otherwise it goes to the landfill.

Didi Pearce

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From: [email-masked] (Deborah Pearce)
Date: Sat, 25 Mar 1995 01:05:21 GMT

Didi Pearce

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From: [email-masked]
Date: 1 Apr 95 12:36:58 -0230

I have always been told that cat litter can't be recycled, even though my 
cats use a basic clay litter, and the cats in the neighbourhood use my 
garden as a litter box. So what is the difference between my cats' litter 
and my garden?

I'd like to know if I should continue to dump the litter in the garbage, or 
put it on my compost heap.

Cheryl

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From: [email-masked]
Date: 2 Apr 95 13:22:57 -0500

> garden as a litter box. So what is the difference between my cats' litter 

One of the big differences between cat litter box contents and cats using
the garden as a litter box is the concentration issue:  litter box
contents are loaded with coliform bacteria which are potentially 
pathogenic.  Most of us can stand a few pathogens, but concentrated
sources are not so easily handled by the immune system.

Another issue is the litter itself.  Most of the commercial litters,
including the clumping litters, are clay.  Most of us don't need any
more clay in our garden soils.

Possible solutions include using litters based on recycled newspaper,
ground corn cob (my cats love this!) sawdust, alfalfa pellets (try
"rabbit pellets", soil, or sand.  You can dump this into an anaerobic
digester (e.g. "Doggie Dooley") and take care of the waste and pathogen
problem at the same time.  Eventually, when your digester fills up,
you'll have a lovely lush spot in the yard from the nutrients.

One of the truly amazing things is that natural biological processes
can take care of some huge pathogen problems as long as
the source concentration isn't high.  For instance, dumping one
person's raw sewage into a babbling brook isn't a big deal.  The
oxygenation and decomposition of the sewage by naturally occuring
microorganisms will generally have the water back to bacteriological
drinking water standards by a half-mile to a mile downstream. (Note,
I'm not talking viruses or parasites like giardia, but fecal coliforms).
Such a stream can handle the wastes generated by a small family.  But
even a river can't handle the sewage of a small town before it gets
to the water intakes of the next town downstream, nor can it
handle the runoff from a hog or beef feedlot.  The concentration
simply overwhelms the capacity of the system.

Someone asked why herbivore manure in compost was ok, but not 
carnivore manure.  It has to do with the strains of bacteria
harbored in the gut of each kind of animal.  Many of the cat
and dog strains of fecal coliforms are too close to strains that
are pathogenic for humans.  

Kay Klier   (and Bearcat, Bad Bess, Little Cat, Lucy-fur, Jinx,
             Max, and Hayden)     [email-masked]

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From: "curt carlson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 95 13:35:06 PDT

> [email-masked] wrote:
>>
Ever hear of cat scratch fever?  (I forget the medical name.) It's a nasty
disease that humans can catch from cats, including from their feces.  I
doubt that your compost heap will reach a temperature hot enough to kill the
microorganisms that can cause it, or any of the other diseases and parasites
that cats and other carnivores can carry.  So unless you intend to use your
compost only for non-food plants, keep the crap out of your compost, and out
of your garden!

Curt Carlson
[email-masked]
Perseverance furthers.
I Ching

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From: [email-masked]
Date: 2 Apr 95 13:22:57 -0500

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From: "curt carlson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 95 13:35:06 PDT

Curt Carlson