Sask. company using flax waste to create sustainable cat litter

The Regina Humane Society is partnering with Prairie Clean Energy (PCE) to introduce a locally made, environmentally friendly kitty litter made from flax straw.

Prairie Clean Cat Litter is made entirely from flax straw, a waste product left over when flax is harvested.

"It is completely biodegradable, completely natural, and it eliminates the cat pee smell," said Mark Cooper, CEO of PCE in Regina. "Your houses are going to smell cleaner, your cats are gonna be happier, you're gonna have less ammonia in your home, and it is all Saskatchewan-made flax."

Cooper said the company was looking for innovative ways to recycle flax straw.

"We really focus on stopping the burning of flax straw, creating new revenue streams for farmers processing that straw, and creating multiple product streams that we sell around the world, only one of which is cat litter, but it's an important one," he said.

Cooper said PCE has been working with the Humane Society for a year testing out the litter and received positive feedback.

"Once they were satisfied that we had a good product on our hands," he said. "We started putting together a partnership that would make sense for them to help reduce their operational costs, and would connect the cats and cat people with a great litter option."

Now when people adopt a cat from the humane society, they can also take some of the Prairie Clean Cat Litter home.

"So we've really structured a partnership to benefit cats and the people that love their cats," Cooper said.

Dr. Catherine Ball, director of veterinary care at the Regina Humane Society, said it used the litter for 40 cats. 

"We observed what happened with those cats, as well as with a similar group of cats that had clay litter, and we were able to find out that this product from PCE performed very well," she said.

Traditional clay litters can get stuck onto the bottom of cats' paws. Ball said that happened less using the flax straw litter.

Cooper said the humane society adopts out 1,500 cats per year.

"We know that those cats will be using our litter and that every single person who adopts a cat from the Humane Society will leave with a free bag," he said.

"Our intention is to roll out this partnership to humane societies everywhere."