Ways to Make Pet-Maintenance More Green

[Wick & Fable]

From buying monthly supplies to cleaning and disposal, I found I was making a lot of trash with Wick. What are some ways everyone makes their pet-related endeavors more eco-friendly?

I no longer use paper towels for Wick– he has his own separate set of towels to wipe up urine and use as wipes when I do vinegar sprays in his hutch (no poopy towels). The used towels are put in a small laundry bag which is designed for dirty cloth diapers, so it doesn’t stink or get gross. Everything easily goes in the wash as well!

The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.

[Q8bunny]

Chewie’s litterbox filler is biodegradable pee pad topped up with newspaper and hay. It gets chucked in a paper bag. Things get freshened up with cotton washcloth and water/vinegar/essential oil spray. His dishes and most toys are reusable. He noms the ends and peels etc from most of my plant food items. His carbon footprint is really quite tiny

[Azerane]

My bunnies (and my parrot) are pretty good waste-wise. I use cloths as much as possible for cleaning their cages (I have green cloths for the bunnies, and red cloths for Dory), I hate the amount of waste from using paper towels although sometimes I do run out of clean cloths (or get lazy) and have to use the paper towels at which point the paper towel always goes into the green waste recycling bin. The bunnies litter and the litter from the bottom of the bird cage goes into the green recycling bin. I use only vinegar for cleaning which is way more enviro friendly than other things too. I suppose their bedding is good too, since I use fleece for bedding in their cage which is obviously washable and reusable. Also buying hay in a bale rather than bags, saves on bags and trips to the store.

The biggest waste for me is probably the plastic bags that I put my fruit and veg in when I’m buying it at the market. If I’m just getting one of something, such as a single sweet potato, I won’t put it in a bag, but there’s still plenty of roly poly things like apples and kiwi fruit that need a bag for weighing.

In terms of toys, I don’t buy many toys for the bunnies, more for Dory as she chews them up pretty quick. Though I do like to save remaining parts from chewed up toys to create new toys with and I do make some of my own toys using fallen branches in our yard.

[Q8bunny]

At the market I always bring one of those twine net bags. They pack up small and are great for weighing roly polys

[Azerane]

Not a bad idea, I wonder where I’d find some of those here. I can see there’s quite a few online. Definitely something to look into, thanks Q8

[vanessa]

I save my grocery shopping bags and use them as small trash can liners, trash bags to haul rabbit poop out from the liter box to the composter, and to store smaller amounts of hay form the hay bale. I don’t think I’m too green though… I change about 10-15 puppy pee pads a day for my incontinent bunny, I put their food and water containers in the dish washer every other day, although I just started using a 1-gallon water dispenser that has a carbon filter, so if ickies get into the drinking part, it doesn’t contaminate the reservoir, and I can just pour out the ickies. I wash his fleece every other day, and I wash 6 human bed pads a week, for his floor surface. I have a power monitor – so I watch the energy spike up to 1800 watts as I use the shopvac to vacuum in the bunny/bird room over weekends.

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