Previously, this was a blog mostly to harass my poor friends and family with the details of my life. Don't worry-- that will continue. However, I'm also going to use this as a terrible forum for dialogue about green tips and eco-revolutions. Hopefully it will be helpful and entertaining...

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Greening my Kitty and your Car!

In honor of... me being a doting Kitty-Mama... I have decided to green my little Annabel. I wrote before about planning to potty-train her-- but I realized that, for now,t his may be somewhat unreasonable. This is primarily because Annabel regularly visits her granddad's house, where other cat's and their litter boxes live-- so I feel like I would have to retrain her multiple times in a year, which would not work very well. Ditto for if I had to board her at a vet or kennel. Thus, for now, I am going to use one of the most environmentally friendly kitty litters: Swheat Scoop, which is made of (unsurprisingly) wheat. It has really low dust and has no clay (which is mined: clearly bad for the environment). Plus, it clumps naturally and is biodegradable. I'd like to flush it, but have been told that flushing it can still be bad for my pipes and eventually cause back ups. I think, however, that this might not be true for wheat based (rather than clay based) litter-- so I'm going to contact the poor folks at Durham's Water Quality Division yet again and see what they think.

If you're a dog owner and not dealing with the joy of cat litter, I hope you are doing your eco-conscious dog owner part. You should ALWAYS pick up your dog's poo (yes, even in your own back yard, Matthew), because pet feces is actually one of the major pollutants in streams. Streams that I'm wading around in. Please keep me poop free by cleaning up dog doo.

In regards to both dog and cat poo, I am still unsure about one aspect: what bags to use. On the one hand, using biodegradable bags is great, because it ... biodegrades. On the other hand, using random plastic bags from packaging means that no production goes into the bags-- and you're going to toss those bags anyways. My main worry is that the plastic will take so long to break down (give or take FOREVER) that the stuff inside won't be able to biodegrade... Any thoughts, people??? For now I'm sticking with use what you have-- that just makes more sense to me. But I'd love to hear why I'm right-- or wrong :)

SO, the point of me discussing the greening of Annabel is that I'm going to start paying for the more expensive, but vastly better for the environment and for my kitty, cat food. Many cat and dog foods contain an ambiguous ingredient known as "meat by-products": dead, dying, diseased, and disabled animals-- including euthanized shelter animals. Because Annabel is not a canna-bel (get it???), I have decided to stop feeding her anything with such euphemistic terms on the bag. I have decided, I think, to go with the expensive but worthwhile Newman's Own brand (shown here in comparison with other organic and green pet foods). The website where that's located, The Green Guide, is an excellent guide for making smarter choices as a consumer. So, poke around there for some eco-good-times.

On another side note, I know that everyone out there in this economic environment are just aching to buy a car... If you are interested in looking at your green options (or just interested in general), check out this informative site about hybrids, diesels, high-mileage, and E-85 (to which I say meh) cars! The cars are, I imagine, often more expensive-- but they will save you gas AND there are currently some tax incentives and such out there... Save both kinds of green, yeah?

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