Earth day brings pitches on green vodka, kitty toilet training, etc.

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« Enviros say McCain not as green as he seems | Main | Good, cheap way to chuck old computers, TVs »

Earth day brings pitches on green vodka, kitty toilet training, etc.

It's Earth Day. Finally. Every year I have to cringe as hordes of marketing folks latch onto this celebration -- once a real grassroots groundswell kinda thing -- and try to make a buck on it.

Today on Morning Edition and All Things Considered on KPLU, environment reporter Liam Moriarty and I kick around the curiosities that have come in over the transom this year.

Here are some of our favorites. As Dave Barry would say, I am not making up any of this:

Toilet train your cat. The pitch here is that if cats just would do their thing right into the toilet, there'd be no need for all that mining for cat litter, not to mention hauling it around (thus using gas and worsening global warming) and taking a variety of other digs at Mother Earth. We've touched on this before -- including the downside for sea otters.

The Voltaic Backpack. Apparently there are some people who cannot bear to be without a computer anyhere. For them, this backpack gathers up enough of the sun's rays to power a computer, CD player, MP3 player, Ipod, yadda, yadda, yadda.

The green urinal. Saves water, apparently.

"Vodka that can save the planet?" the Vancouver Province headline asked. Dunno, but the bottle's 85 percent recycled and the grains were all grown within 150 kilometers of the factory where the hooch is hatched.

The green basketball. Uses 40 percent recycled rubber.

Actually from 2007, but still on sale: Waste plastic bottles made into designer dog beds. Here is another example.

Shoot! Here's one I forgot to mention at KPLU: An "eco-friendly cat lounge and scratcher, organic pet food and biodegradable pooper scooper and bags." (What is it with Earth Day and domesticated animals, anyway? Is there some kinda connection I'm missing?)

The segment is scheduled to air after the 6:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. Morning Edition newscasts and at about 4:40 p.m. on All Things Considered. KPLU is at 88.5 on the low end of the FM dial.

Update 1:55 p.m.: I couldn't help quoting my friend Debbie Gilbert, who covers environment for the Gainesville (Ga.) Times (see her Earth Day coverage here):

It's only a matter of time before Hallmark starts killing trees to sell Happy Earth Day cards.

Posted by at April 22, 2008 6:03 a.m.
Category: Environmental journalism

Comments

#120250

Posted by unregistered user at 4/22/08 7:00 a.m.

We've used a different cat trainer (Litter Kwitter - it's reusable) to train our kitten to use the toilet since our 700 square foot house had no convenient place for a litter box. We've been concerned about the effect on the environment, but have been unable to find an answer to our chief question -- if our cat is inside-only, is she still likely to carry the Toxoplasmosis gondii parasite? And if all/most cats carry this parasite, why not find a treatment for that, since it is linked to harmful effects for humans too?

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#120296

Posted by unregistered user at 4/22/08 10:31 a.m.

To above reader:

While infection of cats is high, very few cats (and relatively few people) actually get sick from toxoplasmosis. So it wouldn't be practical to treat all cats for something they wouldn't even experience as a full-blown disease, despite otters' plight... especially since cats get far less health care than dogs, meaning pet owners are unlikely to jump on the treatment-just-in-case bandwagon.

Here's what Cornell University's Feline Health Center says about toxoplasmosis:

www.vet.cornell.edu/fhc/brochures/toxo.h
tml

Here's info from the American Veterinary Medical Association regarding cats being less likely to get routine health exams and medical care than dogs:

www.avma.org/press/releases/080215_cats.
asp

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#120373

Posted by TheMan at 4/22/08 1:20 p.m.

What is the point of this post??????? Flush the whole dam(n) cat for all I care

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