Why
The average carbon footprint of your dog is twice that of a 4x4 car (Gregory Okin, UCLA, 2018)
Globally, 49 million hectares of land (roughly twice the size of the UK) are used each year to make food for your pets.
In the UK, pets produce twice the emissions of our homes’ electricity every year (Independent, 2021).
In the UK alone, 3.6 billion plastic bags are produced each year for picking up an estimated 1.2 million tonnes of dog-poo (Independent, 2021)
Millions of tons of fish are used each year to feed our domestic cats at a time when the oceans are dying. A shocking 2.48 million tons of raw fish are used for the global cat food industry each year, which is equal to about 13.5% of the worldwide catch (Journal of Agriculture and Environmental Ethics, 2008)
How
Don't Overfeed. Over half the dogs in the UK are obese (Burgess Pet Care)
Reduce to 2 dry food meals a day.
Reduce treats.
Buy local and sustainably produced pet food
Buy locally made pet food instead of importing it to reduce transport emissions.
Bulk buy pet food to reduce transport emissions.
Choose dry pet food over wet pet food. Wet food is water intensive and therefore heavier, creating higher emissions when transporting.
Choosing organic means there is less likely to be factory-farmed animals in your pet food.
Try vegetarian and vegan pet food options.
Insect-based food for dogs and cats is a nutritious and healthy alternative and has 96% fewer emissions than beef.
Please don’t feed your pets food that has any fish content
Go plastic-free
Choose tinned or foil-packaged pet food for recycling purposes.
Use biodegradable or bio-compostable pet poo bags.
Compost your pet poo in local gardens to avoid plastic disposal in the general waste-bin.
Make your pet a toy by repurposing your old scraps at home, avoid plastic novelty toys.
Choose plastic-free grooming products such as a bamboo brush.
Avoid toxic chemicals
Wash your pet with organic shampoo to avoid toxic chemicals leaking into rivers and oceans.
Choose organic pet food that avoids toxic agricultural chemicals.
Switch to plant-based cat litter made from wheat, corn, alfalfa pellets, or recycled newspaper pellets.
Recommendations
Did you know?
The average-sized dog emits 770 kg of CO2e per year (Mike Berners-Lee)
The average-size cat emits 310 kg of CO2e per year (Mike Berners-Lee)
A large-size dog emits 2,500 kg of CO2e per year (Mike Berners-Lee)
A pet's largest CO2 impact is caused by their diet, through meat-based meals that exhaust land, energy and water.
In the UK alone, 20.8 million dogs and cats consume one tin or non-recyclable plastic package of pet food per day which results in 7.6 billion containers being manufactured each year.
33% of a dog and cat diet is meat-based, higher than the 19% meat content that forms an average American human diet (Independent, 2021)
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