Business Spotlight: News You Can Use

One man’s trash is another cat’s treasure.

While pet owners everywhere are familiar with traditional clay-based litters, there is a healthy market for methods of animal waste collection made from other materials.

Aptly, it’s known as the alternative litter segment.

St. Louis-based Nestle Purina PetCare Co.’s Springfield plant makes two such alternative litter products, Yesterday’s News and Secondnature, for cats and dogs, respectively. Both are made from three main recycled ingredients – paper, corrugated cardboard and sawdust – which are then ground and formed into cylindrical pellets.

Some pet owners take a do-it-yourself approach, lining boxes and pans with homemade litter made from similar materials like newspaper and junk mail, or even wood shavings, sand and chicken feed.

While almost any clean paper product will work for the creation of Yesterday’s News, from telephone books to magazines, there is a preferred source, just as the brand name implies.

“What works best for us is newsprint, and that’s because of the soy inks,” says Plant Manager Terry O’Mealy. “They act as a kind of natural lubricant through the process, but anything paper can be in there.”

Although the end result looks different from granular clay litters and are not as easily tracked around the house, their application is similar.

“A significant difference is the way that it absorbs liquid material,” says O’Mealy. “Clays typically absorb from the puddle down to a point, whereas our paper litter will absorb from the bottom up, so it will wick up from the bottom of the pan.”

Beyond birdcages
The company advertises the products as being three times more absorbent than clay litters, and the pellets can be composted or disposed of in the trash. O’Mealy says veterinarians prefer the alternative litter for pets recovering from surgery because, unlike typical clay litter, the pellets do not contain dust that can enter and infect a wound.

The Springfield plant collects recycled paper from roughly 35 bins located in a 10-county area.

“It fills up about every two weeks, and we don’t put near as much in it as the community does,” says David Caffey, senior director of operations for Community Blood Center of the Ozarks, 220 W. Plainview Road, where one such recycling bin is located. “We’re happy to have it here. It seems to be a good community service.”

The entire pelletizing process takes about an hour, from the time collected materials are sorted on the floor to when the fully formed product is ready to ship in recyclable packaging.

“We run pretty lean, we don’t have a lot of room to store large quantities,” O’Mealy says, adding that four or five trucks leave the facility each weekday, each loaded with around 44,000 pounds of packaged litters. “It may sit in our warehouse for a day or two, max. That’s all the room we have.”

The demand for alternative litters is high. Shortly after O’Mealy came to the plant in 2004 as its human resources safety manager, the operation added a second 10-hour, Monday through Thursday shift on the factory floor.

Nestle Purina PetCare posted 2014 revenue of $8.4 billion in its Americas zone, which covers the United States, Canada and Central and Latin Americas. The sales tally was up from $8.2 billion the year before.

According to the American Pet Products Association, the U.S. pet industry generated $58 billion last year, up from $55.7 billion in 2013. Pet supplies, including litter, make up nearly 24 percent of sales.

‘Other people’s trash’
For the Springfield facility, recycling doesn’t stop at obtaining raw material. Part of the sorting process includes separating the inevitable bits of metal, plastic and glass that cannot be used and passing the product along to other local recyclers.

“We’re going on a zero-waste initiative by the end of the year, finding some outlet or resource for everything we would normally take to a landfill,” O’Mealy says. “It’s quite an undertaking, considering we’re taking in other people’s trash.”

“Our associates in Springfield have a passion for recycling, which is reflected not only in the products they produce, but in how they manage all waste at the facility,” says Kirk Lawrence, the company’s vice president of product supply in St. Louis.

O’Mealy estimates 20,000 tons of fibrous material, obtained through the recycling bins and purchased by the company from other recycling entities, are converted into alternative litters every year. Other Nestle companies contribute 60 percent of the corrugated cardboard used in the products’ creation.

Yesterday’s News is sold at national retailers, including PetSmart, PetCo, Hy-Vee, Target, Wal-Mart and Amazon.com. Secondnature is available at pet specialty stores, such as PetSmart and select Target locations, according to the company’s website.

“I think it’s a great relationship with the community because literally we’re taking other people’s trash and we’re turning it into a useful product that is safe and healthy for your pet. That has benefits in and of itself,” O’Mealy says. “And it provides 30 jobs to people here in the area. I think that’s important, and I like that story.”[[In-content Ad]]