Howdy from our shelter-in-place to yours! We’ve fallen a bit behind in our sustainability blogging these last few months, and we’re happy to be getting back to it with a super fun topic… sustainable kitty litter!! Now we may have just lost your interest if you don’t have a cat, but bear with us and you’ll learn something fun that you can share with a cat loving friend.

While cats are delightful creatures, they are generally a sustainability nightmare and their kitty litter is no exception. The primary sustainability issue is that cats are obligate carnivores, meaning that they must eat animal protein. Our cat, Gatsby, takes this a step further and requires specific prescription cat food in metal tins. Though we buy the largest tins we can and painstakingly wash each one out so that it can be recycled, it’s not a very eco-friendly situation. You can imagine our joy when we discovered a more sustainable kitty litter option!

TofuKitty Litter

We’ve long been on the hunt for a kitty litter that met both our specifications and Gatsby’s specifications. Yes, he does indeed make his litter box preferences known. As would any self-respecting cat!

Our answer came in the form of a plant-based sustainable kitty litter called TofuKitty! As you may have guessed based on the name, it’s largely made from excess soy beans (tofu). The creator, Molly, is an Environmental Ecologist who set out to make a more eco-friendly kitty litter, and she succeeded!

Quick list of what we love about TofuKitty as a sustainable litter:

• Plant-based ingredients: soy beans and corn starch
• Reclaimed ingredients that would have otherwise gone to waste
• Compostable or flushable (woohoo!)
• No chemicals
• No dust
• Controls odor
• Gatsby-approved

Flushable Kitty Litter

You might be thinking, wait, “flushable, like down the toilet?” Yep!

TofuKitty Litter is compostable or flushable, and since our local composting option is for food scraps only, so we decided to explore the “flushable” claim. We poured a little bit of litter into a glass of water to reassure ourselves that it would truly dissolve as advertised. It worked like a charm!

Our other concern was whether it was safe to flush cat excrement down the toilet. We had heard that cat-specific parasites (i.e., toxoplasmosis) could be spread to humans and other animals this way. I emailed out local water authority and explained our situation:

• Gatsby is an indoor only cat
• Only eats pet food (doesn’t hunt for his own food)
• Plant based litter that dissolves in water (TofuKitty Litter)

Happily, our water authority wrote back and said that they were fully equipped to handle what we were hoping to flush! This could vary by city though and may be largely influenced by whether your cat goes outdoors due to toxoplasmosis concerns.

By flushing Gatsby’s used litter down the toilet we no longer have to bag his excrement in plastic bags for disposal. We are saving a lot of plastic and keeping waste out of the landfill! It’s a huge win in our sustainability journey!

Sustainability Nightmare No More

While Gatsby’s diet continues to be a source of environmental angst, his potty routine is now quite sustainable due to the TofuKitty Club! We should note that this litter is more expensive than the standard clay litter, however, we are so much happier about this choice. The eco-friendly ingredients ease our conscience and the lack of chemicals eases our worries. Breathing in the dust from the clay litters was pretty uncomfortable and now that’s a thing of the past for all three of us!

TofuKitty is available by mail delivery only. We highly recommend that you check out this sustainable kitty litter! Then you too can downgrade your cat from being a full-blown sustainability nightmare to just a bit of a fright.

xo, Nicole