What Pet Waste Costs: The Litter, Bags, and Packaging Filling America's Landfills

Used clay cat litter is made from strip-mined sodium bentonite that seals around moisture but does not biodegrade after disposal. Millions of tons are discarded each year, and the material can remain in landfills essentially forever. Pet ownership creates additional household waste streams, including dog waste, waste bags, and packaging from pet food and treats. U.S. clay mined for litter is estimated at about five billion pounds annually, and a single cat can use roughly 28 pounds of litter per month. Litter costs range from about $180 to $480 per cat per year, with multi-cat households paying more. Plant-based alternatives can reduce mining and landfill impacts, though performance and cost vary.

"Every year, Americans bury an estimated two million tons or more of used clay cat litter - clay that was strip-mined from the ground, trucked across the country, scooped once, used by a cat, and thrown away. It does not biodegrade, so it sits in the landfill essentially forever. And that is just the cat."

"About 94 million U.S. households keep a pet, and the roughly 68 million dogs and 49 million cats among them, according to the American Pet Products Association's 2025 survey, generate three large and mostly invisible waste streams: cat litter, dog waste and the bags that carry it, and the packaging that food and treats arrive in. Each one carries a cost at the kitchen counter and a much larger one at the national scale."

"Conventional clumping litter is sodium bentonite, a clay valued for the way it seals around moisture. Getting it out of the ground means strip mining, and industry estimates put U.S. clay mined for litter at roughly five billion pounds a year. A single cat works through about 28 pounds of clay litter a month - close to 336 pounds a year - and none of it breaks down once discarded."

"Plant-based alternatives, such as corn, wheat, walnut sshells, recycled paper, or and even tofu, cut the mining and landfill burden, though they vary in price, dustiness, and clumping performance. The table below compares the common options on the dimensions that matter for waste."

Read at Earth911