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Washington, United States
loves: you win if you guessed "pets" and "museums". Also books, art history, travel, British punk, Korean kimchi, bindis, martinis, and other things TBD. I will always make it very clear if a post is sponsored in any way. Drop me a line at thepetmuseum AT gmail.com !

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

littering

"What did they use before there was kitty litter, anyway?" Mark asked me yesterday as we were swapping clean for notsoclean.

I figured sawdust, probably, or sand. But that begs the question of when precisely was bagged commercial litter invented?

Now I know. Edward Lowe of Michigan invented it in 1947. He was a salesman of industrial absorbents, and his neighbor asked him if he had anything better than the wood ash she was using and her cat was tracking everywhere. He suggested an absorbent clay product, which pleased the neighbor so well that Edward thought he'd try bagging it up and seeing how other folks would like it. And the rest is history. In fact, he's the guy who invented Tidy Cat in 1964.

Now, we use Feline Pine and paper pellet litters, but no one would have invented more litter if Edward Lowe hadn't made people aware we needed good box-scratchins'.

2 comments:

The Lee County Clowder said...

And all over the world, millions of kitties and beans live much better lives because of Mr Lowe's efforts.

If there isn't a statue of him somewhere, there probably should be.

Maybe someone should put up a large, bronzed litter box. :-)

curator said...

Amen to THAT! And to whomever invented those drawstring litter bags too : )