Is Tinned Pet Food Eco Friendly?
Do you know if what you feed you dog or cat is good for the environment or have you never even thought about it?
You have no doubt seen the huge array of pet foods available these days, either in the supermarket or the pet shop but is there much difference in their impact on the environment?
Basically there are a list of arguments as to why commercial wet food is not so good for anything really: it’s costs more to feed, it contains various sugars and salts, it costs more to transport, it uses a lot of metal and processing, and the standard of nutrition is less than in premium dry foods.
Lets take a look at the main points:
Packaging:
When you buy a tin of cat food; it will usually feed you pet for 1 or 2 meals - then you throw the can away or recycle it. When you buy a small bag of dry food it will feed your pet for many days or weeks, then you throw it on the compost heap or reuse it for rubbish. But how do they actually compare?
Lets use a cat as the example for this one. Basically a bag of premium dry food is usually around 3kg - that’s 3000g of food in the one bag. An average 3/4 kg cat would need around 40g of food a day, so the bag would last 75 days (nearly 11 weeks).
Needless to say that the same amount of days food in tins would be up to 75 cans per cat! Imagine the wasted packaging here!!! Lets break it down over a year.
The cost of making the tins:
The tins for the pet food need to be made in the first place. Because pets need to eat so many tins of food - there are thousands of tins made each day.
Wrapping the tins:
Each tin needs to have a label made, printed with the brand name and the ingredients and directions. This needs to then be glued onto the tins.
Packing the tins:
Pet food normally gets packed in bulk for transportation, and tins are normally sat on a cardboard (printed with branding) and plastic wrapped in a tray of 12. They are not usually displayed in this packaging so it is discarded before sale.
Transporting the tins:
These trays will then need to be taken to a main distribution centre first and then transported again to a warehouse or supermarket warehouse when ordered. They will finally then be transported to the actual store that needs them.
Transport to your home:
When you buy the tins yourself (an average of 7 at a time because they are so heavy), you will need to package them up for transportation - usually in a plastic bag - and travel with them to your home.
Assuming you need those 75 tins, that is one 400g tin a day - that is 365 tins for the year. Bearing in mind you usually buy around 7 tins per shopping trip, that is 52 trips a year to the store, thats 52 journeys of your time and money to carry home your pets food.
If you live in a street where several of the residents also have a cat, (say a total of 10 cats) thats about 3650 tins a year that need to be produced for just your street. Your neighbourhood could need 5 times that - 13,322,500 tins a year for just 50 cats! Your recycling bins are going to be filled in no time!!
Water:
Dry foods do not waste money on transporting water half way across the world. They are dry foods because that is a better way to produce and transport high quality foods.
Wet foods can contain over 60% water - usually added back to the animal derivatives before canning - and you could argue that this is the same a real meat. But why should you pay for that water to be transported across the country when you can add your own water at home?
If up to 60% of a tin of wet food is water - then you are only getting 40% or less of actual ingredients - and bearing in mind most commercial wet foods contains vegetable material as well - how much of what’s left is actually meat?
Most cats prefer rainwater or water from your bathroom tap as they don’t contain as many minerals as our tap water - and will appear as though your pets are drinking more water when you start feeding them a dry food - but that’s not a bad thing. It just means that there was so much flavoured water in the wet food that it didn’t need to drink before!
Organic & Fair Trade?
Well, there isn’t really a commercially branded wet food that offers the choice of organic food for your pets - although there are several in the premium pet food market.
The pet food market in general is certainly lagging behind in the need for organic and fairly traded products and they will not start to branch out until people start asking and ultimately buying anything that does come out.
Don’t be fooled by ‘natural’ foods in the pet market, or ‘made with fresh chicken’ as all meat was fresh before it was cooked and all meat is natural too - they are false claims for a bit or ‘green-washing’. Never believe the advertising on the front of a product for the truth about a food - look at the actual ingredients so you can judge for yourself!
To Conclude:
Wet pet food uses a lot of packaging and wasted transport costs and energy - and you waste a lot of energy and money going out to buy it. If you want to reduce your impact - reduce your pets dependence on tinned wet food - and switch to dry - preferably a premium dry food (there are different types of dry food available).
Dry food is not bad for your pet, it is actually more nutritious. I know this because if your pet ever gets really ill or drastically overweight - your vet will recommend a prescription diet to fix the problem that is a dry food. So if vets use dry food to make sick dogs and cats better - why not use it when they are still healthy!!!
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Tags: cat, cat food, dog, dog food, environmentally friendly, excess packaging, meat, natural pet food, nutrition, organic pet food, pet food, petfood, tinned food, wet food
April 21st, 2009 at 11:42 am
On a slightly divergent note specific to cat owners - I have been exploring the different cat foods available in an effort to ensure my cats have the best diet and green issues are one of the things that I do take into account - which is why I found myself reading this article.
But I find the argument for dry food at the end worrying as I have come across multiple websites where experts argue, demonstrate evidence/research that a totally dry diet for cats is actually very bad for cats leading to urinary tract/digestive diseases.
I would suggest that people need to investigate all the angles when trying to decide how green their pet care can become.
My reading is pushing me to feel that making my own cat food out of raw meat/ingredients is the best move - which means I be able to cut out all the packaging mentioned above.
May 2nd, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Thanks for your comments - and you are right that some experts believe that cats shouldn’t be fed on just dry food. And there are many premium ‘wet foods’ available to fill this demand.
However, please remember that cats are obligate carnivores and must have certain macro-ingredients found only in meat and in sufficient levels to maintain optimum health.
So, if you are considering a ‘home-made’ diet, make sure you get advice from a qualified professional, not just a website or book that could be written by a non expert with potentially no nutritional background.
Just like humans, cats can ‘get by’ on poor diets and not really get ‘ill’ so to speak, but dry skin, lethargy, dull coat and loose stools are all signs of inadequate nutrition.
Catherine.
October 21st, 2009 at 12:11 am
It is not natural for cats or dogs to eat only dry food. Common sense tells us that they would eat raw meat or fish in the wild, which is rich in water. You can’t get much further from a natural diet than dried food.
It is not good for cats or dogs to have to drink lots of water to compensate for an unnaturally dry diet and often they fall ill through their inability to get enough fresh water. Given the chance, they do not choose dry food.
Ask the animals which they would prefer.
October 24th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
I totally agree that dry food is not what animals would choose in ‘the wild’, but there are other things to consider when thinking about what is better for your pet - as obviously keeping them as pets changes everything. In an artificial environment, maybe an artificial food is the best answer.
If you can offer a complete diet for your cat with raw foods, then that would solve your dilemma - however buying ‘wet’ cat food is actually worse than most dry food!
Wet cat food contains sugar, and to be honest - barely any meat! Most of the ‘flavours’ aren’t even in the food - check the label for the meat content, and see what’s in it. And, they contain high levels of vegetables and cereals - which of course a cat wouldn’t choose to eat ‘in the wild’ either!
Premium dry foods are an easy and exact way of giving your pet all the nutrients it needs - so why not offer it with a splash of warm water if you are concerned about the drinking, as dry food doesn’t have to be eaten dry unless you are worried about bad teeth!
Also, fresh water drunk everyday will be much more healthy than flavoured water that’s been sitting in a tin for months on the pet store shelf or in a warehouse!
And finally - remember that cats and dogs will eat anything they find whether or not it is good for them - like chocolate biscuits, jam on toast and even rotten meat from the bin! None of these are ‘natural’ but pets will always eat them anyway - so maybe they aren’t such good judges of what’s best for them!
Cat