One pet owner have shared a quick and easy way to keep their cats engaged while reducing waste.
The scoop
Joey and Koda's human posted a TikTok video on the Pet Crew account (@petcrew) that showed how they propped up empty toilet paper rolls on the ground and hid treats at the bottom for their cats to discover. The simple toy engaged the cats and offered a little reward for their curiosity.
@petcrew Easy & cheap enrichment idea for cats ✨ #catsoftiktok #cattok #catenrichment #enrichmentforcats #enrichment #blackcat #catenrichmentideas #petenrichment #diyenrichment ♬ Linger - SiriusXM Session - Royel Otis
Other pet owners have also used toilet paper rolls to play with their furry friends. Some close one or both ends of the roll for added challenge. Others have laid out a whole grid for pets to pounce through.
How it's helping
Keeping your pets mentally engaged is important for their health. Behavioral enrichment includes providing pets with ample opportunity to play.
It's possible to tie that play with food in a way that encourages habits it would have outside of captivity, thus improving mental health — and it doesn't require spending money on expensive toys.
In fact, reusing packaging for pet toys is just one of many ways you can be rewarded for supporting a circular economy. Some companies even build entire business models around rewarding folks for donating used items. Trashie, ThredUp, and GotSneakers are just a few of them.
Besides, making those toys in the first place has a whole slew of environmental costs. Plastic pet toys introduce a range of health risks to pets, including kidney damage, infertility, and cancer, as EarthDay.org observed.
When used toys end up in landfills, they shed microplastics into waterways, which find their way into oceans and the fish we catch. Once ingested, humans are at risk of similar health issues.
Using simple toys with materials that are already available around the home, like used toilet paper rolls, can skirt all of those hidden costs. It helps even more that cardboard is readily compostable, which diminishes the damage it would do if otherwise tossed in the trash.
What everyone's saying
TikTok followers were keen to try out this toilet paper roll pet toy for themselves.
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