Treating Cat Litter??

Question

I was reading up on Toxoplasma gondii a bit, and it would seem that the standard mode of chucking or flushing cat litter is causing increased death rates in other animals. I've read freezing may kill the cyst form, but are there any formal methods of pre-treating before disposal.......like a mini p**p freezer lol!!

Answer 1

I guess you could burn the litter in a trash can or something? They do make paper and pine based cat litters. I searched to see if that would work and found this site- it lists incineration as a manner of disposal in lab work involving toxoplasma gondii. At the bottom of the page, "Handling Information" section:)

http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/msds-ftss/msd...

The only other thing I can think of besides freezing would be bleach or another disinfectant chemical, but that would probably be dangerous for animals too.I don't know how deadly freezing is, if it works I suppose you could do that if you liked, maybe a dorm size freezer

?

First though you may want to make sure your cat actually HAS toxoplasma before bothering with it- not all cats have it. Also, most people have been exposed to it before so I'm sort of surprised that cat litter disposal is effecting animals- I'd have though they would have already been exposed in some other way before?

Answer 2

Toxoplasmosis mainly effects pregnant women who aren't careful when they clean a litter box. As long as you keep the litter box scooped out I wouldn't worry about freezing it. I scoop mine into grocery bags and throw it in the trash.