One Geek, One Earth

I have 2 cats, Merlin and Galadriel (no, I am not in the least bit geekish) and despite them being trouble what seems like 80% of the time (and sleeping the other 20%), I love them dearly.

Merlin

Galadriel

So as part of my trip down Natural Products Lane, I’ve been searching for alternative litter choices. Joy and I had been using Tidy Cats, but it has a lot of random chemicals and such in it. However, it has two strong points in its favor:

1. It works. A lot of litter we tried either didn’t clump very well or didn’t suppress odor very well, and since their boxes are in the closet of my office, odor control is key.
2. It is cheap. A lot of the more exotic eco-friendly litter we looked at was ridiculously expensive. World’s Best Cat Litter, for example, ran at $19.00 for a 17lb bag. Tidy Cats basic litter runs $5 for a 20 lb bag.

However, I think we have found the one that fits our criteria: Sweat Scoop Natural Litter.

Per their website:

“Swheat Scoop is an all-natural scoopable litter that’s made from naturally processed (non-food grade) wheat. Its natural wheat enzymes work continuously to eliminate odors, no matter how many cats you own.”

The cats like it, it clumps very well, and it doesn’t raise those hideous dust clouds that the clay litter did. It is flushable, the cats haven’t been tracking it all over the house (an added benefit) and it is reasonably priced. At PetSmart, a 40lb bag runs 21.99 which is not hideous (55 cents per lb). While it isn’t as cheap as Tidy Cats, it helps that we need to use less to get the same effect and it certainly doesn’t break the bank like World’s Best. I can recommend this litter without hesitation to any cat owners looking for an effective litter that also happens to be environmentally safe.

One of the things I’m learning as I start to immerse myself in the green news world is that there are a lot of things that would seem to have an obvious green benefit, but when you look closer, it isn’t such an obvious decision. I had been reading about bamboo and how it was a trendy option for flooring and furniture because it grows so quickly, making it an excellent renewable resource. But then I did some reading at Gristmill and Treehugger and it turns out the choice isn’t that easy. Oftentimes the people harvesting the bamboo are tearing down natural forests to plant bamboo and are using pesticides as part of the growing process. So what seemed like an obviously green choice suddenly requires a lot more thought.

In my case, Joy and I have been deciding what to do about our drinking water situation. Joy drinks a lot of bottled water and I’m planning to move away from drinking a lot of Kool-aid (I really don’t need all that sugar). It seemed like the easy decision would be to get a Brita pitcher. But the decision was complicated by the fact that we’re in a drought. Does the environmental savings from not buying all these bottles of water (that are now being recycled) outweigh the fact that we’ll be using more local water, which is in short supply these days? What I originally thought was going to be an easy decision turned out to be a little more complex. We thought about it for a little bit and decided that the amount of water saved from drinking bottled water was not a particularly high percentage of our water usage, so it was best to go with the Brita pitcher and stop buying the bottled water.

So no easy choices. I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised by that.

We cleaned out the second bathroom yesterday. It was, I’m ashamed to say, pretty hideous. It had been a while since we cleaned it. Rather than whipping out the heavy duty chemical based cleaners, Joy and I decided to try and go with all natural cleaning solutions that we could make up ourselves.

1. For the various bathroom surfaces, we made up a baking soda paste (4 tablespoons baking soda to 4 tablespoons water) that worked very well to clean off the sink and tub, including the chrome on the faucets.
2. For the toilet, 2/3 cup white vinegar in the bowl and brushed it with a toilet brush. Bam! Perfectly clean. Impressive.
3. To get rust off the showerhead pipe, we dipped some steel wool in a mixture made with 1 teaspoon salt to 1 tablespoon lemon juice. This wasn’t as miraculous as the others seemed, but it did remove a good portion of the rust.
4. We cheated on the floors - we swept them and then mopped them using a Swiffer mop. A cheap-o book that Joy bought me suggests cleaning linoleum like what it is our bathroom with an all purpose cleaning solution made with a pint of white vinegar, a cup of water, and 20-30 drops of eucalyptus oil. But we ran out of vinegar and didn’t have any of the eucalyptus oil. Plus, Aurora (my 5 year old) was getting antsy and a bit cranky, so we went the easy, quick solution. We’ll work on getting the all purpose cleaner made up, though.
5. Finally, we replaced the showerhead with a low flow showerhead that Duke gave away as part of their water conservation effort. Now we can start encouraging Aurora to take a shower in her own bathroom rather than making the trek out to ours.

I was very happy about how well the all natural cleaners perfomed and I plan to try and use the all natural solutions for cleaning other parts of the house as well. I may also look into Clorox’s Greenworks line of cleaners. These are 99% natural (and they’re working towards the 100%) cleaning products. They’re going to be more expensive than regular products and probably more expensive than me making my own, but there is also value in supporting a company to produce environmentally friendly products.