We are all very fortunate that most cats are such clean animals – they will defecate and urinate in their litterbox because it is the cleanest and most effective way to hide their waste materials. If their litter is not to their satisfaction, cats will use alternative litter areas in the potted palm, a pile of clean laundry, your bedspread. If it’s clean and they can “bury” stuff in it, it’s fair game.
Traditionally, cat litter has been clay litter, which is actual clay that is mined from the ground, pelletized, scented, etc. It’s good for burying feces, but it mostly gets soggy from urine…it does not absorb liquids, or their smells, very well. Sand litters function in much the same way, except that they clump when exposed to liquid. They do not absorb. What is most disturbing is that clay must be strip-mined to obtain the clay needed for regular cat litters. Strip mining causes irreversible damage to the earth and harms the ecosystem. All this is currently done to produce a marginally effective product. There is a better and more environmentally sound alternative – “Yesterdayís News”.
Yesterday’s News is a revolutionary litter product made from pelletized, recycled newspaper. They tell me that up to 36% of landfill is newspaper. If I can use a product twice before it gets buried in the gigantic human litterbox that we call “landfill,” I will be a happy guy. The kicker is that Yesterday’s News is a far-superior product compared to conventional litters. Yesterday’s News is dust free, and it is super absorbent. This litter will absorb 400% of its volume in liquid, thus capturing the smells as well as the wet. Because it is so absorbent, the volume of litter needed for the box is less. And even more importantly, the price of being environmentally and litter-box intelligent is very equivalent to the price of perfumed clay.
Okay, so where is all this talk going? We have always been big fans of Yesterday’s News. We were first introduced to it as a bedding/cage material for exotic pets – reptiles, ferrets, guinea pigs, rats, mice, hamsters, etc. Because it is dust free, it prevents many respiratory and allergy problems associated with wood cage litters – problems for both humans and pets. It also helps tremendously with the smell of cute furry critter excrement. Anyway…we have had problems getting the stuff here in Tucson, but now we are actually carrying Yesterday’s News and would like to offer it to our clients as an environmentally sound and superior product.
Enough said…give Yesterday’s News a try!!
Michael S. Samuels, D.V.M.
Central Animal Hospital
