Companion animals are sacred to us. But especially dogs and cats leave a large footprint.
Pets are like cars. The status that many assign to the dog, cat, goldfish, hamster or parrot has a similar cuddly factor. Don’t touch our sacred cow on four wheels, but don’t touch Felix and Fikkie on four legs either. There is another similarity: both cars and pets pollute the planet. Mainly because of what they eat.
“Dogs and cats eat meat,” says Theun Vellinga, senior researcher in animal husbandry and the environment at Wageningen University & Research (Wur). “A cat is a real carnivore, it can hardly do without meat. A dog is an omnivore, it is less dependent on meat.”
Pooping isn’t good for the planet either. After all, the feces of dogs and cats do not return as fertilizer in the mineral cycle, just like that of humans. Vellinga: “All those minerals are needed to be able to produce the crops again in a new cycle, in a new year. So you have to supplement that with fertilizer.”
It all depends on which animal you bring into your home
To complete the comparison between companion animal and sacred cow: the Swiss research agency ESU-services has already investigated that feeding a dog for a year is just as dirty for the planet as a car journey of 3677 kilometers. A cat’s annual carbon footprint is equivalent to a car journey of 1,413 kilometers. A goldfish, on the other hand, is ‘only’ as polluting in a year as driving 14 kilometers in a passenger car. It all depends on which animal you bring into your home. Vellinga: “Very succinctly: every extra pet is bad for the planet.” But cats and dogs are also a source of pollution outside the home, not to mention the annoyance of their feces – “a source of potential disease,” according to Vellinga.
“Dogs are walked in nature reserves, for example, where the manure and urine provide an enrichment with minerals. Then farmers have to do their very best to reverse the nitrogen load and the dogs in particular add an amount of nitrogen and phosphate to nutrient-poor nature reserves, such as the heath.”
At the end of 2020, the University of Edinburgh published a study that showed that animal feed producers emit as much carbon dioxide in a year as the Philippines or Mozambique. Moreover, to provide food for all pets requires an amount of agricultural land twice the size of the United Kingdom.
Animal protection is not comfortable with alternative food
The industry has announced through the Dutch Food Industry Companion Animals (NVG) that it does a lot to change the dog and cat kibble. “The animal feed industry often uses residual products to prevent the waste of important nutrients. In addition, there is plenty of attention for local sources, sustainable techniques and innovations such as alternative proteins,” explains the NVG.
As long as that alternative food is not at the expense of the dog or cat, says the Animal Protection. “In livestock farming, experiments are sometimes carried out with certain feed compositions in order to reduce emissions. As far as the Animal Protection is concerned, you should not do this if it affects the welfare of the animal, and we hope that this step will not be taken towards pet food,” says a spokesperson for the Animal Protection. “Another point, in line with this: you could keep cats inside to reduce the footprint of defecating outside. But some cats are outdoor cats pur sang. Keeping it inside is then a blow to the well-being of the animal.”
Least polluting? No pet
Information organization Milieu Centraal has put tips on the website to reduce the impact of pets. Tip 1 is: the least burdensome pet is not a pet. You can also walk your neighbour’s dog or help animals that already live in your garden, advises Milieu Centraal. Other tips: take a small animal because it eats less, give dogs and cats dry food and not wet kibble. And think about the energy consumption of tropical aquariums.
In this way there is a world to win because there are quite a few four-legged friends, birds and fish in this country. The most recent survey of the pet population in the Netherlands dates from 2021 (conducted by I&O Research). In that year, a total of 22 million pets lived here, including 3.2 million cats, 1.8 million dogs, 1.6 million song and ornamental birds and 5.8 million aquarium fish. In addition, the Dutch keep half a million rabbits and hundreds of thousands of rodents and reptiles as pets.
We don’t do that for nothing, says Vellinga: “You are very strict if you only look at the environmental and climate impact. Pets also have a value, for many people the company of a dog or cat is very important and many people take a dog for a walk.”
Read also:
Dog with anti-flea agent releases banned agricultural poison into nature
No, the dog will not die from the product that the owner uses to combat fleas and ticks.