[Closed] Environmental cost of pet ownership

Panic buying in the pet food aisles in 3....2.....1.....

What about all the poop, my God how much can a Labrador produce!!

On a packaging note, we buy his food in 20kg sacks that last a fair while and then use the sacks for gardening duties before the contents are tipped into the recycle bin and the sacks re-used.

Perhaps the issue here isn't the ownership of pets but they way food manufacturers choose to package and present food.

My dog food comes in a 12kg sack which is 100% recyclable but, more often than not, I will use it as a waste bag or gardening sack. This lasts for about 6 - 8 weeks.
I suspect the issue here is precious owners who buy individually wrapped meals for Tinkerbell.

I also reduce plastic use by doing away with poo bags and leaving her poo's wherever they land*

*joking

I have a cat and a dog. The amount of packaging I throw out from their food is a miniscule fraction of what I throw out for myself.

Pet ownership has bugger all impact the environment

It was discussed. A few years back someone wrote a book claiming that a dog had a bigger carbon footprint than an SUV. The numbers were disputed, but it's clear that a large dog will have a significant impact on the environment, due to both its inputs and outputs - even without all the driving to nice places to take it for a walk.

Pet ownership has bugger all impact the environment

Not so. all that food they eat has to be produced and transported. Every kilo of meat requires 10 kgs of plans at least ( ok varies but thats the accepted figure). Thats a lot of food going to feed our pets while people go hungry.

It seems 10 -20 dogs or cats is equal to one car in pollution terms

So enjoy your pets by all means but like with everything else remember the environmental costs of your choices

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-56328860/blockquote >

Hmm, Aside from chicken 'jerky' treats, Supermarkets don't sell decent pet food to my knowledge - it's over packaged, over processed shite. The pet equivelent of this, maybe they should ban ready meals whilst they are at it.

 

I have a cat and a dog. The amount of packaging I throw out from their food is a miniscule fraction of what I throw out for myself.

The environmental impacts come from the contents, not so much the packaging. It's the same for your food.

My cat has destroyed the local vole population (we live at the side of a big field) and has had a few birds - although we try to get them off her before she kills them.
Natural born killer sadly.

Pet ownership has bugger all impact the environment

Aside from cats decimating the small creature wildlife ecosystem you mean?

Cats should be banned. Dogs are awesome.

Same as others - always buy our dog food in 15kg bags. And she also gets left over food from us (well the healthy bits like chicken and rice. And carrots. She loves carrots).

What about all the poop

biodegradable TBF

Yes to cats.
No to dogs.
No to banning ready meals.
The world can implode as far as I'm concerned in 30 years or so.
I guess as I don't have kids, the next generation of lil consumers, that makes me super enviro friendly.

biodegradable TBF

Also toxic.

The second worst thing, for the environment, is to have a car. The first is to have children. Pets are quite a way down the list...

biodegradable TBF

Also toxic.

Depends what you feed them I guess, what goes in comes out.

This is 4% chicken :0

Every pet has at least one owner, they’ll produce more packaging and more damage to the environment that the pet does. While yes we need to do more to help the environment pets is fairly low down. As mentioned the manufactures need to take responsibility for what they use.

Jake gets a pouch or tin on special occasions the next being his 13th birthday next week.

For any cat/dog owners who think that their pet doesn't have an impact on the environment might want to read this article and maybe have a rethink
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/opinion/pets-uk-ownership-cats-dogs-carbon-environmental-impact-b1249610.html

This is 4% chicken :0

Adult dog chunks with chicken?! Is this what they meant by capitalism eating itself?

I'm guessing the meat content of pet food is waste product that is unfit or undesirable for humans. Not that it would make pet ownership environmentally friendly on that basis alone.

Adult dog chunks with chicken?! Is this what they meant by capitalism eating itself?

😀 also, Tesco chunks in jelly ?!

SO the other 96% of the tin, is doggs, jelly and chunks of tesco?

Brilliant labling 🙁

While yes we need to do more to help the environment pets is fairly low down.

It really isn't. Read the links above

A 2019 study reported that the average Dutch dog’s carbon emissions just for food were up to 1.4 tonnes and cats were up to 0.25 tonnes. This is nearly double the annual electricity carbon emissions for the average UK household just for dog food and about a third of household electricity emissions for the average cat’s food.

Edit - see those LED lamps you fitted? Save a tiny amount compared to the cost of a dog ( pollution / CO2 terms)

Pretty much any human activity has an environmental cost and as the owner of two dogs I accept that. I've no kids though and the mental health benefits to me of the dogs have been huge.

A 2019 study reported that the average Dutch dog’s carbon emissions just for food were up to 1.4 tonnes and cats were up to 0.25 tonnes. This is nearly double the annual electricity carbon emissions for the average UK household just for dog food and about a third of household electricity emissions for the average cat’s food.

I find that difficult to belive as the meat content for most pet cheap pet food is just the crap left over that humans don't want to buy/eat? so whilst I don't condone supermarket pet food, surely there's an economical benefit there as the abattoir waste isn't going to waste as such, it's just minced up into cheap cat/dog food?

In the tesco dog food tin example:

Meat and Animal Derivatives (44%, including 4% Chicken)

I guess the rest is water and gelatin.

The second worst thing, for the environment, is to have a car. The first is to have children. Pets are quite a way down the list…

Medium sized dog about twice as bad a rather thirsty Toyota Land cruiser according to the New Scientist

Needs a sign in but the salient stat is copied below

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427313-200-cute-fluffy-and-horribly-greedy/?ignored=irrelevant

it takes 0.84 hectares [2.07 acres] of land to keep a medium-sized dog fed. In contrast, running a 4.6-litre Toyota Land Cruiser, including the energy required to construct the thing and drive it 10,000km a year, requires 0.41 hectares.

4.6-litre Toyota Land Cruiser, including the energy required to construct the thing and drive it 10,000km a year, requires 0.41 hectares.

How may hectares for the diesel to fuel it? and how many oil products for all the plastic interiors? How's that measured in hectares?!?

Not to mention the filthy polluting exhast fumes from a 4.6l Chelsea tractor, that taken into account?

I simply can't belive a mid size dog, say a collie or a retriver, is worse for the environment than that.

Aside from cats decimating the small creature wildlife ecosystem you mean?

Cats should be banned. Dogs are awesome.

Yeah i was going to use the word decimate, then realised that would be an underestimate. Maybe time to get a bell.

How may hectares for the diesel to fuel it?

That's included. That's why it's says 10000km/year. It goes on to say a western pet dog has a bigger footprint than the average Vietnamese person. A cat is about the same a VW Golf

As mentioned the mental health/social benefits of dog ownership far outweighs any environmental impact !

Some of the assumptions in that Independent article were quite astonishing.

It states 50% of adults own a pet and it then goes on to discuss mainly cats and their impact on wildlife and a bit about dogs and their food. Which is rather misleading. I'm not 100% sure how much wildlife my dog has killed, but I think it's none at all so far, but he's only 10 so there's still time, I suspect a rabbit or a horse kills even less.

I don't know any dog owners who feed their dog one can/none recyclable packet per day. Most buy bulk, and the bags are recyclable (and so are cans).

What relevance is the % of meat compared to a human diet? My dog doesn't have 3 meals a day, or a coffee and cake for elevensies.

How is fish used for pet food any crueller? Being dragged out of the sea in a net or on a hook and asphyxiating can't be any worse just because you're heading for pet food.

I'm not saying there's not an impact, but if we're going to discuss it let's start with some actual facts.

Given that New Scientist magazine is now owned by the same people that own the Daily Mail, I might take that with a pinch of salt.

Quite a shame, really.. I uesd to buy a copy when traveling for someting interesting to read.

The second worst thing, for the environment, is to have a car. The first is to have children. Pets are quite a way down the list…

Citation needed.

Guinea pigs for the win, we grow a lot of their food, one of our neighbours gives us a bag of veg waste most days, bedding is recycled news paper and natural products (hay) and they eat their own poo, cant get more recycling than that.

I don’t know what my dogs been eating, but there’s a significant localised environmental cost frequently vacating him this evening. The air is so thick with it I think I can almost see it.

I guiltily help make 10k tons of difficult to recycle oil based materials a year that are in constant demand. My furchild as opposed to actually children is way down my list of environmental concerns.

The environmental impact of children is far worse. Children should be banned before pets

My 14 year old 3.0 tdi will cause more damage to the environment then my multiple pets ever will 🙂

Its interesting how the dog owners on here refuse to accdept they create a huge environmental cost.

Dare i say typical entitled dog owners?

* runs away and hides*

It really isn’t. Read the links above

There’s very dodgy statistics in there.

Dare I say it’s a typical pet haters and self proclaimed environmentalists wet dream.

The hidden environmental cost of dogs is the huge number of owners that drive them to walks. Lockdown has exposed this for me. Roads round here rammed with fido limousines as dog owners are incapable of walking them from front door.My cat laughs at the lazy tossers whilst chewing on a Wren.

touche Drac !

[strong]nickjb[/strong] wrote:

That’s included. That’s why it’s says 10000km/year. It goes on to say a western pet dog has a bigger footprint than the average Vietnamese person. A cat is about the same a VW Golf

Biodiesel is mainly made from oil seed rape oil.
Rape yields on average 3 tonnes to the hectare.
0.4 hectares gives 1200 kg of rape seed
oil extracted from the seed is 40% by mass so we get 480 litres of rape oil
conversion of rape oil to biodiesel is 97% efficient given 465 l of biodiesel
if the truck is doing 10000 km a year and the 0.4 hectares is only being used to produce fuel then it will have to be capable of qa fuel consumption of 4.65 l/100 km or about 51 mpg
The example of a Land Cruiser being able to be constructed and fuelled from 0.4 ha is therefore pretty far fetched!

As mentioned the mental health/social benefits of dog ownership far outweighs any environmental impact

Benefits are for you, environmental impact is on everyone. Sounds about right.

One worrying impacts of dog ownership is bird disturbance on beaches and dunes. In winter letting dogs run off leads across the beach at low tide will set birds up causing them to stop feeding and waste energy. This has a measurable negative impact on overwintering and on passage waders like plover and sanderling.

In nesting season dogs can a exacerbate human disturbance of potential nesting birds above the strand line, in dunes and on spits, etc.