When you think of making efforts to go green in your home, what does that entail?
We are in a time when many people are doing more to try and become more environmentally friendly and leave less of a carbon footprint. This may mean you make sure to use your recycling bins religiously to give new life to the bottles and cans you have used. It also may mean you read the ingredients in your clothes and other items you are considering buying more carefully, to make sure they are made of renewable resources.
While you may have gone through all the items you use on a regular basis, there is probably an area you have still overlooked. What about the items owned by your pets? If you have a dog or cat, you probably have a dog or cat houses. While these may not seem like overly threatening items when you look at them, you also may not have thought what those dog and cat houses are made of.
First, let's look at the obvious. Are your dog and cat houses painted? If so, do you know what kind of paint has been used? Paint does not last forever. Sometimes it will chip and fall off and become a part of the soil. If the paint is toxic, that is being put into the soil around your home. Another thing to keep in mind is that your pets may well chew on their dog and cat houses. That could mean the toxic chemicals in the paintings are going into their bodies as they chew on the edges of their houses. If your pet does enough chewing, this could end with them getting sick. Instead, try to find dog and cat houses that have been painted with friendly paints, or better yet, not painted at all.
Next, most dog and cat houses are made of wood. If they are meant to be outside, often times the wood has been treated to resist rain and the elements. Unfortunately, the only way to do this is to saturate the wood with chemicals. These chemicals can be toxic to your pets if they like to chew on the wood. Their chewing will release some of these processed chemicals and they will absorb them into their body. The chemicals from these treated dog and cat houses will also leech into the soil around where the houses are set.
Thankfully, there has been a massive growth in the number of eco-friendly dog and cat houses in the past few years as more and more people are looking for ways to lessen their carbon imprint. These houses are made of materials that are either completely environmentally friendly, or are made of items that have been kept from landfills, like recycled plastic and PVC. The advances in recycled creations have come a long way and these types of dog and cat houses are being made in a number of styles and colors to suit even the most discerning dog or finicky feline.
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