Healthy Kitty, Healthy world

That part of my brain that justifies bad decisions has just come up with a good "reason" why eating fast food isn't such a bad thing. Ready for this? Paper bags.

Funny huh? I know, I know - why would a recycler like myself like getting paper bags. I can answer that it 2 words - Kitty Poop. Yes, Kitty Poop.

You see, I recently learned about how general scoopable cat litter was bad. Bad, bad bad actually. Where to begin.
- Most have dust containing an agent that causes cancer. And when that dust on our kitties feet gets put on our sofas, pillows and hands guess who breathes it all in? The one who bought the kitty liter and all their friends and family. Nice.
- The clay that makes it "clump" was strip-mined from the ground. Yes I said strip-mined. To the tune of 2 million tons a year. Have your attention yet?
- Once the clay has been processed - it's not bio degradable. Can't be flushed. So tons and tons of kitty poop are sitting in landfills.
- Most folks use plastic bags (as they are in such abundance) to throw away their kitty poop.

So, we've got stinky cancer causing chemicals in a non-bio degradable format in a non-bio degradable bag. Oh how non-green it is!!!

I'm currently working to transfer my lovely and picky kitty over to Swheat Scoop Wheat Litter. Thought about doing the pine, but I know our kitty would hate the smell. Swheat scoop is bio degradable. But how to dispose of it..... Supposedly if you're willing to wait 20 minutes for it to dissolve a bit first, you can flush it down the toilet. Not a horrible idea, but I'm not willing to waste 12-15 gallons of water per Kitty cleaning flush every day when my city is in a drought. We often put the poop in plastic bags still around the house. (Who thinks shoe shopping = plastic bags? One day I'll learn...) But of course then it's not bio-degradable.

And now we are full circle. Fast food bags. Small. Free (with purchase). Completely bio-degradable. If my whole household goes even 3 times a week (that would be once a week for each of us) we'd have enough bags. And while I'd like to dramatically reduce my numbers there, I think there are other folks in the house who would more than make up for me. So, thanks to McDonald's, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Popeye's, Jack in the Box, Sonic, Burger King and many others not listed here - I'll be able to dramatically reduce our Kitty Poop ecological footprint. I'm not sure our Kitty cares, but I'm quite excited.

Waterbottles, sunscreen and name tags

Every day of camp those were the three things that said at least 20 times a morning to my campers before they were allowed to go out to breakfast. And shoes. Apparently my kids aren't used to leaving carpeting because no one wanted to wear shoes.

Meghan - You need to re-fill your water bottle. Emma - I see your name tag still on the bed! Alena - Where is your water bottle? Jaycee - Did you put the sunscreen on your face?

It was like a constant rotation. Every morning.

What does this have to do with being healthy? These kids were drinking water. Lots of water. They made it a habit. And they were learning to be healthy in applying sunscreen before even walking the trail out to breakfast. We talked about how important it was. We ended up in discussions about global warming.

The camp recycled their aluminum and plastic bottles. We talked about how it meant less trash in the world. And, since this was a church camp, we talked about how we were being better stewards of the earth by keeping it clean and making less waste. God wants the earth to be clean. And even though it totally wasn't pushed on them - the kids got it. They were all volunteering to recycle and I didn't see a single kid litter the whole time. Absolutely perfect. Isn't that what it's really all about?

Just like the rule you tell kids when playing with messy toys - this place needs to look as good when you leave as it did when you walked in, if not better. Same thing with the world. You may have enjoyed playing - but it's time to clean up.

Recycling away from home

I have a new good habit that K is not at all happy with. I bring home recyclable goods. Had a can of soup at work? Clean the can and bring it home for the recycle bin. Sure, that Starbucks tastes good, but should the plastic cup it came in just get tossed in a landfill? Nope. Bring it home and recycle it.

Of course, I wouldn't need to do that if businesses were able to use the same recycling process that residential folks get. But of course, it's not they don't. At least most don't.

So, I have a bag in one of my drawers were my recycled goods go. Paper with unclassified information. Plastics. Aluminum cans. Glass containers. It's all going home with me.

K tells me I'm bringing home trash. I tell her that I'm saving it from the trash. She rolls her eyes and mutters under her breath a bit. I can make out the word "trash" and some less family friendly verbiage.

Imagine if everyone did this. Just recycling the things they used each day outside the home. The container your sandwich came in to the lid to your drink. Now picture that one out of 5000 would pick up the random piece that someone else left behind. A can here and there. We would have so much less trash going down into the land fill. And maybe - just maybe we'd keep the recycle processing plants busy enough that they would actually expand the program to accept new materials.

I may not be able to compost and I don't have any land immediately available for urban gardening, but I'm going to do everything I can to reduce how much is going into the trash can at home - and at work.