Our millions of pets are impacting on the environment too!
Here’s a simple way to reduce their plastic footprint!
Today’s action is one for domestic cat and dog owners out there, and is a small step towards making keeping a pet more sustainable and with a reduced plastic footprint.
Did you know that, according to UCLA’s Professor Gregory Okin, dogs and cats in US households:
- create about 64 million tons of carbon dioxide and methane annually – the equivalent of 13 million cars
- consume the same number of calories as the population of France
- consume more meat than the average human
- consume around 25% of the total calories derived from animal products
- leave behind over 5 million tons of faeces each year (the same as 90 million humans)
(Similar impacts will be felt in other countries, it’s just that this research covers US pets)
So having a pet leaves more of an effect on the planet than people may realize. Eco-conscious pet owners do have a few options to minimize their impact.
Here is one small way of helping – buy your ‘wet’ pet food in recyclable cans, and your ‘dry’ pet food in cardboard boxes and paper bags. Please avoid the plastic pouches which seem to market pet food as “gourmet products”, they are expensive and a totally unnecessary use of plastics.
What to avoid
Put simply, anything in plastic! Like this:
or these:
What to buy instead
Petfood in traditional tins and cans, which are fully recyclable, like this:
or this (but avoid plastic-wrapped multipacks):
or food in card boxes, like this:
or in paper packaging, like this (be careful to avoid plastic lining or laminating!):
Ideally, using our consumer power we can convince pet food companies to address the impact their products are having on the environment, and plastic packaging is an obvious place to start.
NB: if you have any concerns about switching to a different type or brand of pet food, adjust your pet’s diet gradually, and perhaps with guidance from your vet.
Take action
It’s easy … please reduce your pet’s plastic pawprint with this simple change and avoid pet food in plastic packaging; it’s totally unnecessary, usually more expensive and is adding to our massive global plastic pollution problem.
If you haven’t done so already, please sign up to our bulletin “Take Action” using the form below, and thank you for your support.