What measures do you take to conserve water?

I’m not listing each answer, but here are some highlights:

• Most popular answer (aside from “At least 5 of the above”) was turn off water while washing dishes and brushing teeth with 15% of the vote.

• Eating little or no meat claimed 7% of the vote. It takes a lot of water to get a package of beef to the store. . .

• Compost instead of using the garbage disposal and wear clothes more than once both came in at 6% of votes, while taking fewer showers/baths received 5% of votes.

• And it seems most of you do a mixture of all the choices with 46% of the vote as “at least 5 of the above.” In retrospect, that choice probably made this poll confusing to interpret. I won’t do that again.

And a different sort of poll –

Here are the most read water posts at Tree Hugging Family in July:

Green Product Review: SIGG Water Bottle

Green Product Review: Klean Kanteen Water Bottle

Dishwashers Use Less Water

Easy Toilet Leak Test

10 Handy Water-saving Tricks

As Jennifer mentioned, we’ll sprinkle in more water posts throughout the year. And if you have some students in your family, please don’t miss all the Back to School posts at Tree Hugging Family throughout August.

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Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in August 2008

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In comments on the bag shyness post, Kristen said:

I’ll be honest: Even though I own several reusable shopping bags, I seldom use them. The reason? I have three cats, and I use plastic grocery bags when I clean the litterbox because I can tie them up when I’m done.

Sorry I’m picking on you Kristen, but I think this is a great topic. We’ve talked about green cat litter here, but we haven’t spent much time on litter disposal.

It’s difficult to think about buying a biodegradable bag for cat waste disposal when you can get plastic bags for free at the store. However, plastic bags (the ones offered now that are made with petroleum) may not always be free or even legal. As awareness is spreading about the pollution caused by plastic bags, more cities and countries are outlawing them. Ideally, all stores will start offering biodegradable bags made from corn. Or even more ideally, all consumers will take their own bags.

I use Feline Pine, and they recommend disposing of solid cat waste daily, then getting rid of the litter when it’s spent. Feline Pine is flushable, but it’s not recommended.

Ways to avoid disposing of cat litter

• Flushing — The Sea Otter Alliance cautions against flushing cat waste and litter. Sea otters are becoming infected with Toxoplasma. Also, Nature’s Earth, makers of Feline Pine, says, “… we at Nature’s Earth strongly urge our customers to dispose of their cat’s feces in the garbage — especially if you live in a coastal community.”

• Composting — Cat waste can be toxic. You don’t want it in your veggie garden.

Greener cat litter disposal

• Biodegradable corn-based cat pan liners from BioBag — This solves the problem of what to do with spent litter in a handy way, but it doesn’t help with the daily poop scooping.

• A recycled paper bag — Some stores like Whole Foods now offer these. I’m not saying to stop taking your own bags, but maybe skip occasionally to stock up. I feel so guilty saying that!

While BioBags can take care of litter disposal, the problem of cat poop disposal isn’t easily solved. While traditional plastic bags offered at most stores aren’t biodegradable, they require less energy to make than virgin paper bags. If you use a paper bag, everything will break down in the landfill. I’m going to also offer another option on cat waste disposal.

Greener cat waste disposal

• Use a BioBag pooper bag designed for dogs. It’s biodegradable, same as the litter pan liners. Take this directly to your garbage bin.

Hmm, I was going to suggest using a separate pet trash can lined with a recycled paper bag or BioBag kitchen bag, but I think odor would be a problem.

How do you dispose of your cat’s litter/waste?

Image via flickr.

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in June 2008

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In case you don’t drink as much coffee as Jennifer, you may need to supplement. And why not? Starbucks has to do something with all those grounds.

I’m guessing there’s a Starbucks near you, and they have a program called Grounds for Your Garden.

They also offer some tips on using coffee grounds.

Also, check out Sunset magazine’s article, The Starbucks coffee compost test.

Image from flickr.

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