Topic: litter tray = valuable source of nitrogen etc - true or false

[daxzen]

as a new lottie activist

i am now getting into the whole compost routine and save the polar bears thru re use and recycle everthing


we share our home with three house cats - they are very clean boys and we remove any faeces immediately

their urine is soaked up by the white catsan litter


every saturday morning we empty and thoroughly clean the litter trays - sending the cat litter to the local tip.

i can smell the ammonia and i know from the old science lessons that urine is rich in potassium, nitrogen etc.


I  emailed catsan and they told me that its is perfectly fine to add the cat litter - NO FAECES to the compost bin.


So as a test i have started ...........................and will report here


has anyone done this yet and does human wee wee represent a valuable source of plant nutrients

[Jeannine]

Personally I would not put cat litter in the compost even if the solids were removed.

 Cats carry parasites that can cross to humans albeit rarely and the compost does not get hot enough to kill them. This is the reason why children ,pregnant women and people with lowered immune sytems should not handle soiled cat litter. Even if the litter with the solids removed there is no guaranttee that some parasitic eggs would not fall off the faeces into the apparently unsoiled litter.

It would make no difference what type of litter it was either.

 All composting books I have read have advised this.

Personally I think the risk is too great.I know some eople could have been doing it for years without difficulty but  parasites from cats can cause blindness in humans,however rare,it is a risk I would not take with my families health
 XX Jeannine

[SueSteve]

Hi,
I am really into recycling, reusing etc, but would not risk using the cat litter.
If you want something high in nitrogen, grow a patch with clover in your rotation, red is better than white!
Sue

[daxzen]

thanks for the advice

based on that i am now concerned with the cats that come scratching in my vegetable beds


but my boys are house cats

they do not go outside

they have no access to other cats and have proprietary cat food

they are wormed and vetted regularly


whats the risk

[Svea]

the risk is yours to take, if you wnt.

to your earlier question: human wee is good, put onto the heap as an accellerant to get the compost going...

[Baccy Man]

they are wormed and vetted regularly ... whats the risk

If you add the litter within a week or 2 of them being wormed you will kill off beneficial bacteria & insects other than that it will not cause any problems.

If you wanted to compost the solid waste too then you would have to get the temperature of the compost heap up to 150°F for a few minutes after the last addition of pet waste to ensure all pathogens are destroyed. If you can acheive that temperature in your heaps you can safely compost dog & cat waste.

[antipodes]

I use compostable cat litter for my cat, it is made out of some kind of compressed organic matter, dunno if it is corn waste or wood, anyway it breaks down into a fine powdery stuff when it is wet, and I put it on the compost. I have only been doing it for about a month so I can't tell yet if is is a good idea or not, but it breaks down pretty well.
 I don't really buy all the stuff about dangerous pathogens etc, I think nature has her own ways of dealing with stuff like that, but obviously the issue is there. I guess it depends on your foolhardy nature  ;)
However I am kinda surprised that you can use catsan because I thought it was clay-based? Thought you would need a special type...

[daxzen]

That make me feel better

I will continue to compost the catsan -but I will use two compost bins one for cat litter and one normal

I will split the compostable material equally and run it as a trial

I will report back

Great news about the compostable faeces - surely we have been that on a much larger scale at the local sewage works abd the final material goes on the land. Organic and wholesome stuff too i feel

Also if anyone ever visits a sewage works in summer - just notice the tomato plants growing around the sites as weeds - lesson ther maybe?

[antipodes]

ooops, sorry I may have been misleading - I do not put the faeces in, mainly because my cat's are SOOOOOOO smelly that they cannot be left in the litter tray, and are immediately scooped out and flushed down the loo. I am not sure that cat faeces are appreciated by the compost critters because it is a carnivorous animal so they break down must slower than "manure".  (having said this, I wonder if you bury them quite deeply in the ground, surely they disappear after a while???? but I wouldn't get that fussy).
My litter is mixed with the normal compost I don't think it will compost by itself very well (maybe that is not what you meant? did you mean one including litter, one with none??).
Hubby thinks I am mad doing this, he can't see the point in composting etc and it is a struggle to get him to separate the rubbish properly. Composting the cat litter just seems to be another step on the road to madness, in his opinion... although at first I wanted to keep a worm farm in my basement so now I have a compost heap on the lot, he is much relieved  ;D

[daxzen]

great feedback

i am with you

the faeces goes down toilet and the ammonia smelling cat litter goes into the compost bin with other vegetable material to be composted

i will be running it as atrial to see what happens

i think it will be OK

the reason i want to persevere is because I'd heard that human wee is a valuable commodity

for example - gunpowder needs saltpeter (potassium nitrate) and in the old days the most convenient source of it was human urine -  each village had a urinal to collect wee from all the and then ..................... BANG!

cheers all

dax

[daxzen]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_nitrate

[deboydoyd]

I think I would agree with the cautious answer. I have 5 cats (only 2 use the trays) and it has never occured to me until this question to compost the litter. My cats may be my precious beautiful babies but I am under no illusion that they can pick up & carry all sorts of stuff, and I wouldn't want to put into my food chain. But then - do I know what's in my soil, or the air.....