Here are tips that will help you and your dog reduce your environmental impact and put your best pawprint forward.
We love this time of year and the opportunity it represents, and if you’re anything like us, you want to make sure that you’re setting yourself up for success and making positive changes. As a dog owner and lover, one of the most significant changes that you can make for yourself, your dog, and the earth is reducing your Dog’s environmental impact. From pet food to dog waste disposal, there are many things pet lovers can do to increase the sustainability of dog ownership. For example, approximately 500 million plastic poop bags are used annually worldwide. We know that plastics are harming the environment – it is estimated that plastic bags can take more than 500 years to degrade in a landfill! Reducing that number is easy to do!
- Purchase Eco-friendly Pet Products
When searching for pet products such as dog shampoos, there is never a shortage of options with the thousands of products to choose from. Interestingly, like human sustainability, pet sustainability begins with smart purchases. View additional Eco-Friendly Pet Products here. Using an all-natural pet shampoo without added chemicals is a great place to start. Consider using pet shampoo that has zero plastic and made with simple ingredients such as all-natural hemp, with dog-safe essential oils for a light scent.
-
Choose paper biodegradable pet waste bags
By making a simple change to a truly biodegradable bag is another excellent step toward decreasing your pet’s impact. Picking up after your pet is a necessary responsibility of pet ownership. If you don’t, you could be harming the earth and its water supply. Using biodegradable bags is another great way to reduce your pet’s environmental footprint. Take the confusion out of the question of whether your dog waste bags are truly plastic-free by using recycled paper dog waste bags.
- Spay or Neuter your Pets
One significant aspect of sustainable and responsible pet ownership is to think about the balance of animals on our planet. Overpopulation can have a considerable impact on the natural life cycle, causing adverse effects on the ecosystem. Having your dog spayed or neutered is an important way to ensure that this balance remains intact. Adopt, don’t shop. Use non-profit dog rescue organizations. They are dedicated to finding homes for animals that are abandoned or worse, destined for human consumption. An estimated 30,000,000 dogs and cats die across Asia each year, all in the name of human consumption.
-
Hygiene – Cleaning up after your pet
Reduce the chemicals in your home by making your own floor cleaner is an excellent option for keeping your home clean. You can do this easily with common household ingredients. Simply mix a gallon of warm water with a cup of distilled vinegar. The vinegar will clean, disinfect, and deodorize. This is non-toxic and safe for pets. Also, another way to prevent dirty floors and healthy paws is to use a portable dog shower to rinse off your dog’s feet before entering your home.
- Choose Sustainable Pet Food
Dog food trends encourage owners to feed their pets the same foods that humans eat: high-quality “human grade” meat and organic produce, maybe even some “superfoods.” While this approach is emotionally appealing, it isn’t necessary for pets’ health, nor does it have a significant environmental impact.
Above all, we can all start to help reduce plastic pollution and help our environmental impact. If together, we make the goals of eliminating or reducing our plastic consumption, we can move towards a greener, more sustainable future.
