Tip #8 - Taking Care of Business
Pets are great to have around the home and can be some of our best friends. Greening our day to day lives doesn’t have to be just for us. We have talked on and off again on this blog about reusing what we can, reducing our waste production where possible and recycling everything else.
What about pet waste? Let’s stop to talk about this for a moment. We train them to go outside and do what they need to do, and we follow behind with a plastic bag in hand. These are plastic bags that we save up, knowing that we’ll use them nearly every day for just this task. While many people argue that they are reusing the bag, which is technically true, it can still be said that the plastic bag (a recyclable item) will head for the waste stream. Solution: Do your part by spending the extra few dollars on a roll of biodegradable / compostable “doggy bags”, and keep the plastic bags out of the landfills.
April 27th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Hi - great thoughts on the biodegradable bags, but I was always told NOT to put domestic animal waste into compost since they are carnivores as opposed to livestock (horse, cow, etc.) being herbivores thus the potential parasites (especially in cat feces being Toxoplasma gondii). If we all got our piles to at least $140 degrees that would be one thing, but the average gardener’s compost does not get anywhere that temperature.
What are your thoughts on this?
tj
April 30th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Hi Tia. I agree that you should keep pet waste out of backyard compost piles. What I was suggesting was keeping the plastic bags out of the landfill and instead use the biodegradable bags that can decompose quicker. I think that putting the biodegradable bags in your personal compost piles is good in some instances, and have had success in my own backyard pile.
Thanks.