Are you a cat owner? 

Is cleaning out their kitty litter one of your least favourite jobs? 

Did you know that you might be causing yourself a big problem if you are disposing of your cat poop in your toilet?

Why shouldn’t you flush your cat poop (and kitty litter) down the toilet? 

When you are cleaning out your cats’  litter tray it seems the best solution for ridding yourself of their stinky poop is to scope it out of the litter tray and flush it down the loo… But it’s not as clever as you might think! 

Firstly, it is near on impossible to scrape all of the kitty litter off your cats’ poop before you flush it, and while all of our posts say that you are safe to flush the three P’s, pees, poos and (toilet) paper, those little remnants of kitty litter are not safe to flush. 

Kitty litter by design, absorbs liquid and swells. Often made from bentonite clay (which turns into a cement like substance in your pipes) or pine, wheat, corn or silica, the remnants that you can’t remove from the poop before you flush it, are likely to swell and cause a blockage in your pipes. 

Furthermore, cat poop often contains harmful parasites called Toxoplasma Gondii, an infection of Toxoplasma Gondii causes Toxoplasmosis. Toxoplasmosis is very dangerous for pregnant women (it may cause many problems to the foetus, even death), and also for people who have compromised immune systems. While these people should not be handling cat faeces in the first instance, if you are flushing your cat faeces down the loo, it can be very harmful to the environment as Toxoplasma Gondii may not be completely eliminated in the water treatment process before your sewage is released back into the environment. This can result in contamination of marine environments, local wildlife, and if you have a house sewerage treatment plant, your garden, and potentially your family. 

So if you can’t flush your cat waste, how should you dispose of it? 

The safest way to dispose of your cats’ poop and litter is to place it in a garbage bag and dispose of it in the rubbish bin. 

If you have previously flushed your cat poop or kitty litter down the toilet and are worried that it might be starting to cause issues with your drainage, septic or sewerage treatment system, give us a call on 0439 648 390 and we can arrange a drainage inspection and advise on the best way to avoid further issues moving forward.