Can Pets Go Zero Waste?

Those of you with pets: admit it, you’ve had to think about it. What do we do with their doo? Plastic bags headed to the landfill loaded with methane bombs comes to mind. Not only is the plastic egregious, but filling it with toxic waste to eventually seep into both our atmosphere and watersheds makes no sense. Really, isn’t there a better option? There is.

I always figured having the little furballs go all-natural and eliminate all-waste in our back 40 (well, it’s really someone else’s back 40) made the best sense, but when you read all about it (pet poop, that is) it becomes clear the stuff is full of things like toxiplasmosis which is darnright nasty for the environment, especially for our waters, and we live just a hundred yards or so uphill of Puget Sound.

I’ll even admit to thinking we could try to potty-train our kitten. If you haven’t seen this bizarre practice before, do check out the YouTube videos available on the subject. It’s a bit disturbing, but makes excellent sense. Our furry friend, Willa, got way into it — the toilet, I mean. After falling into it a few times, she sent us a clear message she just didn’t like the porcelain throne and opted to do her dukeys all over the bathroom floor. Seeing her scratch at the commode as if it were some form of kitty litter was pathetic to watch, so we converted her back to an all-American wheat-loving litter-using furry feline in no time and emptied the “clumps” into a re-used plastic bag with that tinge 0f guilt, once again.

Fast forward to about a year later, when we stumbled across Bokashi and their pet waste composting system which promises to turn Willa-waste into fuschia-food. So, day-before-yesterday, in honor of No Impact Week’s waste day, we assembled our Bokashi composter with excitement.

Bokashi Pet Waste experiment Day 1

It’s a chemistry experiment that only children could love, and although those big plastic buckets rub me the wrong way, this system should work for life, converting the brown and smelly into gorgeous garden gold for perennials. It’s not for the veggie garden, doo note please, for obvious reasons. Be sure to check out Bokashi’s website to learn more about their systems for pet waste and composting in general. They’re closed systems, so they don’t emit methane. And as for those plastic buckets, if taken care of properly, they’ll be put to use….forever.

Zero Waste Kitty