Cat Waste: To Flush or Not to Flush

What do you tell customers who ask how to handle waste from their feline friends?

Cat Waste: To Flush or Not to Flush

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Environmental advice columnist Mr. Green with Sierra magazine recently tackled a question some of you pumpers may recognize: Can I flush cat poop?

A reader with five cats says she uses sawdust nuggets as litter and scoops out the poop before flushing it into her septic. She then empties all the urine-soaked sawdust along a fence in her yard. The reader — Sally from South Miami, Florida — wanted to know if she was causing harm to the environment.

In answering the reader, Mr. Green suggests she could overburden her septic system by flushing cat excrement, adding that city-dwellers shouldn’t flush it into municipal systems either, since treatment technology can’t eliminate Toxoplasma, a common parasite carried by cats.

Mr. Green suggests the best practice is to place cat waste into a biodegradable bag and throw it out with the normal household trash because spreading cat waste outside also helps spread Toxoplasma.

Pumpers, what do you say to your customers who ask what to do with cat waste? To see the full question and answer, visit Sierra magazine.



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