Compostable Cat Litter?
Hello all. As the proud owner of a house beast and a smaller lady cat, and being committed to closing as much of my ecological impact as I can, I am left with a conundrum. I have been getting, for cat litter, what is essentially red cedar sawdust. It keeps the smell down, lasts better than most commercial litters, and my two cats use it without complaint. Now, the packaging suggests that the litter is compostable. However, I know that cat feces is some dangerous stuff to mess with, and can carry pathogens that are quite insidious.
My primary concern is that there is no method to fully isolate the litter which contains feces from the litter that contains only urine. While I have confidence that the C content of the red cedar sawdust is high enough to handle the N load from the cat urine and compost it down, I cannot be certain or know that, even when the feces has been sifted from the litter, and disposed of through my sewage line, that the remaining used litter can be processed as normal compost, without concern for the traces of cat feces carrying pathogens. I don’t know what is sufficient processing to handle toxoplasmosis oocysts, and I do not feel comfortable experimenting in my kitchen scrap compost pile.
As an aside, I am aware that I could process the whole of the used litter, fecal traces included, as separate from my normal compost processing. I could then use it, with caution, only in places with no exposure to foodcrops, but I am not certain whether the 2 years normally given to finish fecal composts would be sufficient for toxoplasmosis cysts. Further, I’d rather keep one compost system, as my current space, and any space I’m likely to afford under current property law, can probably only really handle one compost system.
I look forward to hearing people’s thoughts.
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