RE: [greenyes] Re: Cat Litter in the Waste Stream

["Heidi Feldman" <hfeldman@no.address>]

A large increase in mysterious deaths of sea otters in Monterey Bay has
been attributed to cat litter in the sewage water. This doesn't directly
apply to the topic at hand but I think it's an alarming discovery.

Heidi Feldman
Public Education Coordinator
Monterey Regional Waste Management District
Tel.: 831/384-5313     FAX: 831/384-3567

-----Original Message-----
From: SPENDELOW Peter H [mailto:SPENDELOW.Peter@no.address] 
Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 2:04 PM
To: greenyes@no.address
Cc: Stephan Pollard
Subject: [greenyes] Re: Cat Litter in the Waste Stream

Stephan-

The 2002 Oregon Waste Composition Study has a category "Pet
Litter/Animal Feces" which is dominated by the pet litter component.
This category made up about 1.7% of all of Oregon's non-industrial solid
waste (90% confidence interval: 1.40% to 1.99%).  In tons, this works
out to about 46,000 tons disposed in Oregon in 2002.  Not surprisingly,
the pet litter category was especially large in residential waste, where
it made up about 4 percent of the garbage in residential route trucks,
but less than 1 percent of the waste in commercial route trucks.

As for alternative disposal methods or suggestions others may have on
how to minimize this waste stream, I'd love to hear what others have to
offer.

Here is a link to the Oregon study:

http://www.deq.state.or.us/wmc/solwaste/wcrep/wccr2002.htm

Peter Spendelow
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality 

---------Original Message --------------
> From: Stephan Pollard <sp@no.address>
> Subject: Cat Litter in the Waste Stream

> Anyone looked at the quantity/weight of cat litter in the waste 
> stream and alternative disposal methods?

> Stephan