Hi, everyone. I saw this tutorial on making your own cat litter from The Greenists. Not only is it basically free ,because we all get junk paper and newspaper in our mailboxes, but it's also recycling.
There's a little effort involved but if you like recycling and hate throwing away money on cat litter, it might be worth it to you.
Ah this looks like an awesome alternative. I spend big bucks on kitty litter every month only to have it smell like a field of artificial flowers in my bathroom. And my cats have this thing where they like to kick the litter all over the floor and then it feels like i'm stepping on a pile of baby powdered Legos every time I go in. The only issue I have with this is baking soda isn't that good of a deodorizer by itself. I mean at the beginning you won't really smell anything but it loses its effect fast. And then the only thing you'd be able to do after that is add even more baking soda except you won't be able to knead the new amount in(unless you don't mind kneading cat urine). Also the pellets she showed looked too big. The thing with cat litter is they need to be small enough to absorb the liquid and stick to the poop. Those are too big. She should have considered adding some clay to the mix as well. You can get a big bag of the stuff from Home Depot or Lowes. Clay is a super absorbent and can also help minimize certain odors. Another thing would be to add some flower petals(like lavender) to the mix so it smells a little better starting off. Deodorizing litters are nice, but it's even better to deodorize and add a better scent to the air. Shredded fabric is also another alternative. I used to volunteer at an animal shelter so we'd have to get really creative when we would run out of our month's supply of litter.
This would work great if your cat isn't too fussy about the kind of litter he uses. My cat has never used a clay litter alternative so I don't know how she would react and I'm not about to find out the hard way that she doesn't like paper litter. She seems to have sensitive feet so I'm not sure if she would like scratching in shredded paper or not. If a cat doesn't like his litter, he won't use the box and I would rather not get her started urinating all over the place. I use an unscented litter now, because her nose is pretty sensitive too. Right now she's very good about using her box, and I don't want to jinx that and have her start avoiding it because it smells all perfumed... which is a smell more delightful for humans than for cats. I will look into this at some point, and perhaps put out a separate litter box with paper in it and see if she decides to use it. If so, then perhaps we will start recycling our used paper, though I'm not sure we have enough paper around here to keep that box filled with fresh litter all the time. I only have one cat, so I can get away with buying a 5 lb. bag of clay litter at the dollar store, but five pounds of recycled paper might have me scouting the whole neighborhood for papers and I'm not sure I'm up for that. In the long run, while perhaps not cheaper, (even though I only pay $1.00 a bag) commercial cat litter might be the easiest method for those of us who are fairly busy and can't spend half our lives looking for, cutting up, and treating shredded paper to keep that box full. Recycling is a lot of work, and although it sounds terrific on paper, you really have to make time for it in your busy schedule.
