Reducing Landfill - Doing my bit!!

[BarleySugar]

Most of or rubbish is now plastic that we can't put in the recycling and the cat litter. I use the wood pellets for the cats, but although the moggies are all wormed etc, I wouldn't compost their waste. Just had a thought, if I sprinkled bokashi bran into the litter before putting it into the rubbish, would it break down quicker, as it must be aneorobic in the land fill?
All garden and uncooked veg waste goes into the compost bin. I use the bokashi system in the kitchen (not that there are many leftovers) but great for bones and stuff I can't feed to the cats. That is being layered in a compost bin with old potting compost for use later in the year. All tins, paper, card, and glass are collected by the council recycling. We reuse bags and always refuse ones at the checkout.
If we buy meat at our supermarket butchers counter, and as OH won't trawl the small shops, and he does the shopping, we often do, they insist on putting into a second plastic bag at the checkout. When we protested, we were told it's 'health and safety'. I'm sure it isn't necessary as they package it so well at the counter it isn't leaking, but not worth the hassle. I have got him to go for the least packaged items he can find when shopping now, and choose glass bottles instead of plastic if he can.
Our rubbish is collected fortnightly, recycling and normal rubbish alternating. The rubbish bin has to have the lid completely closed, but we can put as much recycling out as we have.
If we didn't have cat litter, we wouldn't fill our bin in 2 weeks, but we get it all in OK, which with a family of 5, and 6 cats isn't too bad I think. When we drive around, most people seem to have plenty of recycling out, and although our council don't 'police' what you put in the rubbish, as they don't collect if the bin is not closed, it seems to be working. If we do a big clear out, I freecycle and recycle anything we can, but sometime stuff has to go to the 'tip'.
My mum is really good about recycling too, at 83 she says it might not make much difference to her, but it should help people in the future. Mum used to get really miffed with my brother's OH for not recycling (they live in the same house), but after pointedly resorting rubbish bags in front of 'almost DIL' she has improved a lot
Surely we MUST be making some difference?

[sharonr]

I use woodpellets for my cat too. I find you only have to put a tiny amount into the tray, also I find it doesn`t smell like the other cat litter. As my cat is 16 and is now a bit geriatric I don`t let him out much so it helps a lot that it doesn`t smell.

[BarleySugar]

I think the smell of some cat litters is worse that the small of cat poo, and that's saying something! I keep all mine in at night, and I know even during the day, several will come in to use the litter rather than going outside. The kids change the litter, and I've had to nag not to put too much in. Think they are getting the message.

[lynda66]

i do compost my cat litter that my kitten uses, my older cat doesn't use it, he goes at the bottom of the garden, on the waste ground, i remove the poo from the litter, then compost the rest, cats wormed regularly, so i don't see what the problem is? urine is good for the compost, can't see any difference with cat wee.

have one large compost heap, will add more when i need them, we have a paper bin, which doesn't get much in it, as i compost most of my paper, there isn't that much anyway. we have a green bin for glass and plastic, and a brown bin for garden waste, not much goes in that either. just round the corner, there is a food and drink can bin, and a shoe and clothing bin. i rarely buy prepackaged stuff, so hardly anything goes in my black bin any more. and they empty it every week.

[Alison]

I think the residue of the worming stuff which will be found in the cat's waste is also a problem as it will also kill garden worms - am sure I read this although think it might have been talking about problems in wormeries. May be worth being particularly careful if you're wanting to do this for a little while after worming. Personally, I'd rather not put my cats' litter on the compost heap.