Sept. 17, 2024
Hidden Danger: Plastics in Pet Products
Hey there!
In this episode, you’ll hear us refer to the show as Starlight Pet Talk—that’s what we called it before we decided to embrace the fur, mess, and mayhem. Don’t worry, you’re in the right place for Muddy Paws and Hairballs—same great content, just with a name that fits! - Amy
Have you ever wondered if the everyday items your pet uses, like toys and food containers, could be harming their health?
In this eye-opening episode, we dive into the hidden dangers of plastics in pet products with Aidan Charron from EarthDay.org, who shares startling findings from the “Pets vs Plastics” report.
What You'll Learn:
- The Hidden Health Risks: Discover the shocking chemicals like phthalates and BPA found in common pet items and learn how they can contribute to serious health issues like developmental problems and increased cancer risk in pets.
- The Regulatory Gaps: Learn about the lack of regulation in the pet product industry, and why this means you need to be more vigilant about the products you choose for your pets.
- Practical Tips for Safer Choices: Get actionable advice on reducing plastic use, such as choosing ceramic or stainless steel bowls and understanding product labels to make healthier choices for your pets.
- Global Efforts and Implications: Explore the broader fight against plastic pollution, including how international agreements like the Global Plastics Treaty could impact the pet industry.
Plus, find out how your consumer choices can drive positive changes in the market and why understanding pet food labels is crucial for your pet's health. With insights from Aiden and resources like the "Pets vs Plastics" report and TruthAboutPetFood.org, this episode empowers you to make informed decisions that protect your pet's well-being.
Don’t miss this essential conversation that could change the way you shop for your pet forever. Read the "Pets vs Plastics" report on EarthDay.org to learn more.
Learn more about the dangers of plastics for your pets by reading
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Chapters
00:00 - Pets Versus Plastics Report
11:39 - Pet Plastics
22:27 - Plastics Treaty and Pet Food Accountability
27:40 - Plastic Impact on Pets' Health
Transcript
WEBVTT
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Have you ever wondered how plastic pollution might be affecting your pets?
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Well, you might be surprised to learn that it's not just an environmental issue.
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It's also a serious health concern for the companion animals that we love.
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In this episode, we're joined by Aiden Sharon from the Earth Day organization, who will shed light on pets versus plastics.
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Discover how everyday plastic products, from your pet's toys to their food containers, could be impacting their health and well-being.
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Aiden will explain how plastic pollution works, reveal some shocking findings and offer us some practical tips for reducing plastic use in pet care.
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If you care about your pets and want to understand how you can help them stay healthier and happier, stay tuned.
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You're listening to Starlight Pet Talk, a podcast for pet parents who want the best pet care advice from cat experts, dog trainers, veterinarians and other top pet professionals who will help you live your very best life with your pets.
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Welcome to Starlight Pet Talk.
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I'm your host, amy Castro, and my special guest today is Aiden Sharon.
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Aidn is the Associate Director of Global Earth Day for earthdayorg.
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Growing up on the coast of North Carolina, aidan always had a passion for a clean environment and engaging in outdoor activities like hiking, surfing and scuba diving.
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With his passion for nature.
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He earned a degree in biology, minoring in geographic information systems which I actually know what that is because I work with a lot of cities and counties in my work and he got his degree from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.
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Before joining the Earth Day team.
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He worked in wetland reclamation, then taught middle school and high school science.
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In his free time, aiden enjoys biking and hiking around DC with his wife and their two dogs, buzz and Sally.
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So, A, thank you so much for being here with us today.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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I really appreciate it.
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Yeah, I was really glad when you when it wasn't you, I think that initially reached out, but somebody had reached out and I was like this is great, like I didn't know that the pets versus plastics report existed and what it was all about.
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But I've always been pretty suspect about some of the things that go into our pet products for a lot of different reasons, just being in the pet industry.
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So I'm assuming most of the people that are listening today have no idea I mean, everybody knows what Earth Day is, but no idea about some of the other things that you do, like this Pets vs Plastics report, and also no idea that plastics are an issue for pets.
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So can you kind of just give us an overview of the report and then we'll dig into some of the nitty-gritty along the way.
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Yeah, sure thing.
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So we came out with the Pets vs Plastics report after having some success with our Babies vs Plastics report, equally as upsetting.
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But we realized not everybody has human children of their own, but the pet market and the amount of pet ownership has been on the rise steadily.
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I don't have any kids of my own, I have two dogs.
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So this is really hitting close to me of just trying to get the word out and trying to raise awareness about the dangers of plastic and its additive chemicals especially.
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There's a bunch of health effects associated with plastic that we can dive into.
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And then, just when it comes to the pet food industry and the pet toy industry and the pet clothes industry, there's just so little regulation and so little oversight of what goes into those products and that's potentially harmful to your pet and to you.
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So we wrote the report as a way to just get the word out there to a group of people that aren't normally thought of when you're thinking about the environment, and that's pet owners.
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Yeah, and it's interesting because I think we get this false sense of security, both for our own health and then also for the health of our pets, that there are these organizations, Like if somebody went out and said, well, who regulates pet food with the FDA?
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Well, goodness, that's who regulates our pet food.
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But I think what people don't often realize is that the regulations exist but it's often highly left to the manufacturers to make those come to fruition and you know, it doesn't always happen like we think it's going to happen.
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So when you were involved in the research, what were some of the most kind of alarming or scary things that came out just from the get-go as you started digging into this issue?
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As soon as we started diving into the research it was myself and a team at Earth Day just working on the report for, of course, to be here, but as we're diving into it, we realized there's just so little regulation out there and there's just so little rules when it comes to these manufacturing plants, and there's so little people paying attention to it, like you have the fda that's supposed to be the monitor of our pet food and our animal feed is how it's framed.
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And then, when you start looking into it, though, you realize, oh, they're not actually checking on these manufacturing processes, they're not actually holding these companies to account when it comes to these terrible things they're doing and, frankly, the rules they have set up were put together by a separate non-governmental organization that probably doesn't have our pets' health and our pets' well-being in mind, but rather the profits of those larger manufacturing companies.
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Right.
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I mean, we've seen it across the board.
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We've seen some of the headlines that have come out, both again, for human products and for pet products.
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And in defense and I'm not defending the pet food organizations, I don't work with any direct pet food organizations, but you know it's a catch-22, right, we don't want to pay $100 for a bag of dog food a lot of people.
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And so how do we make it cheaper?
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Well, there's ways to make it cheaper, but is it worth that?
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Savings?
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You know it's not.
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And people, there are a lot of people out there that just don't want to know about it.
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It's like, oh, I know that name brand.
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This is a price I'm willing to pay.
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And I'm shocked at how many people haven't even begun to look at their pet food labels or let alone their own food labels.
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But you know, we've done some things about pet food ingredients.
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Just is the regular ingredients, not the other extraneous stuff that gets into our pet's food, and it's shocking how little people have done their homework on what they're letting their beloved pet ingest.
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And the scarier thing about the label too there's not really like mandates and rules when it comes to what they put on the label, so they could blatantly lie, like there's a company that's like we only have seven ingredients in our food.
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And then you start looking into it and it's like that seven ingredients slowly starts growing and growing into like hundreds of different ingredients that just aren't mentioned or they're like well, we only use it in 2% of the batch, so why does it matter?
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Why are these things popping up?
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And it's just an issue when it comes to the labeling.
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It's an issue just all the way at the top for the manufacturing.
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Yeah, and it's.
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You know, it's kind of like those when you start digging into the.
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This is what's theoretically in it, like you said, but then these other things have made their way into it, like a certain percentage of this, that or the other thing would be acceptable, and it's just this broad category of things that, if you knew what it was, you would be shocked and appalled along the way.
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Yeah, part of that's the plastic bags and things that end up into the food for our pets.
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So in some countries, including the US at times, we dispose of huge amounts of bread products wrapped in plastic that's then shipped off to a pet food manufacturing plant where the bags of food still with the plastic wrapping and the bread is ground up and then sold dried and sold to us as pet food, so that pet food your pets are consuming still is containing the plastic.
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That way there's also when you're adding animal product to the pet food.
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They don't typically cut off the ear tags or get rid of any plastic that's used to mark the animal, that's used for slaughter and that's ending up directly into the pet's food as well.
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Animal that's used for slaughter and that's ending up directly into the pet's food as well.
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Right, yeah, so it's not even just about understanding that, when they say pet byproducts, what that means, because that's a whole other ball of wax.
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But that's probably still better than getting a ear tag.
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And I know, coming from Texas, I see the cattle out here with their ear tags.
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And what people don't realize too is that, yes, on one level those are plastic markers, but some of them also have some really nasty, heavy-duty insecticide embedded in them that keeps mosquitoes, ticks, fleas, whatever it is they're trying to keep off the animal.
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Because we've had neighbors around here that will take those ear tags and put them, like, for example, under their gait controller or in their septic system controller to keep fire ants from going in there, and it's like, okay, I didn't know those things were, you know, embedded with chemicals in addition to just being made up of chemicals, because they're plastic.
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Yeah, and like why?
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Why would you think about that?
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Like why we think we have these regulatory bodies set up to, you know, control that, and we wouldn't expect them to allow that kind of thing.
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But it's just hard to manage and it's hard for most people to realize.
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They're not always going to be on top of every single person and it's kind of up to the consumer to kind of call these companies out as well.
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Right.
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So I know, when I think about Earth Day, I wouldn't think about pets in plastic or babies in plastic.
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I think about what's the impact on the earth.
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So I guess that's the question I want to ask is what is the impact?
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I mean, we're going to get into the impact on our pets in great detail, but on a broader sense, how does this impact our environment?
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Yeah, so we are an environmental organization, but I think one of the key things we've tried and we think we've been pretty successful over the past year is recognizing that human health is a part of environmental health.
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So the thing we've been pushing for and the thing that my boss, kathleen Rogers, has been like, we really need to like not get into people's brains, like if it's bad for the environment, it's probably bad for you as well.
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Plastic is no exception and might be the worst thing out there.
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Just because plastic, when it breaks down, doesn't truly break down.
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It's made of.
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Up to 16,000 different chemicals go into the production of plastic.
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That's 16,000 different ways you can put it together, that's 16.
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I guess that ends up being trillions upon trillions of different combos you can have that just make it so dangerous.
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And when plastic breaks down, it doesn't start breaking down into those base materials.
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Like you know, wood over a while is going to break down to cellulose.
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It's going to break down to the sugars.
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It's going to break down and decompose.
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Plastic, on the other hand, just gets smaller and smaller and smaller and still holds that structure, still carries those chemicals and can then act as vectors for disease as well.
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So it goes from being this macroplastic we think of this pencil, for example as a macroplastic.
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It's gonna break down into a microplastic, it's gonna break down further into a nanoplastic, and the nanoplastic's what's really interesting and what's really dangerous, because that's what's ending up into our bloodstreams.
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But on the environmental field, it also means it can just be thrown up into the air, float around and get anywhere, including into our waterways.
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We're finding it at the bottom of Marianas Trench.
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We're finding it at the top of Mount Everest.
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People may be like well, we have people exploring Mount Everest all the time.
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That's not that surprising.
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But it's also being found in these remote areas that haven't been touched by humans for 300 years.
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Now, placid's only been around for like 80 years.
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So that doesn't really make sense unless it's able to just be thrown up in the air and just get anywhere super easily.
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Well, and you think about migration and the oceans and things like that as well and leaching into soil.
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When I was in the Air Force I took a really interesting and it was literally about specific to jet fuel and how that can cause underground water contamination.
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And you know, I was a public affairs officer, I had nothing to do with anything environmental, but we were having an environmental issue, which is why we were doing this course.
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But it was so fascinating and horrifying to realize how chemicals and other dangerous things get into our soil, get into the underground water tables, how it spreads out and then the impact on people's drinking water or your kids playing in the backyard digging in the dirt or you're working in your garden and just the long-term effects of those is pretty horrifying.
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Yeah, and then you also have plastic, and what a lot of people don't realize too is plastic is oil, it's fossil fuels.
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It's made up of petroleum.
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Petroleum, notably and considerably, is very flammable, so we have to pump it full of these additive chemicals.
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I mentioned 16 000 before.
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We've tested nowhere near the 16 000 amount.
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We've tested like 4200 of them, I believe.
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All 4,200 were found to be toxic for human and organism health, so that tells you anything about the stuff we're just pumping into it.
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Furthermore, it just leads to all these different diseases and things, but it also.
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Plasma production accounts for currently only 3.4% of greenhouse gas emissions, which may sound like a small number, but as we start pivoting away from you away from petroleum and fossil fuels as our main energy source when it comes to the planet.
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We're starting to move towards renewable energy and those kinds of things.
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We're going to start to see the petroleum industry and the fossil fuel industry start trying to push towards plastic as their saving grace.
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They don't want to give up the huge profit margins.
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They want to see a shift and that shift will be plastic.
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So 3.4% is going to at least triple by 2060 if we don't start curbing the problem.
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And that's just the greenhouse gas emissions.
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That doesn't include the millions of tons that are pumped into the ocean every year.
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Right, yeah, for a lot of people it's like oh, I'm not.
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Like when you said 2060, am I still going to be alive then?
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Yeah, but your kids and your grandkids and their pets are going to be around.
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So let's go ahead and kind of transition and start talking about the pets specifically, because I think the average consumer is at least moderately aware of plastics and their own health, but probably don't think about it with their pets.
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And then the pet products and that was something that was interesting when I read the report is that it's the plastic in the food, because that's the first thing that I thought about oh, it's getting into our food.
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But I literally, after reading the report, went through all of our pet toys, because we get a lot of pet toys, not only ones that we have purchased ourselves at the animal rescue, but things that have been donated, and you just look at them in a different way when you realize the impact.
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So you know what are some of the common culprits or the common ways that our pets are being affected by plastic in their day-to-day lives.
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Yeah, so one thing or a couple of chemicals that people might be more familiar with when it comes to plastic is something called phthalates and bpa, or bisphenols, I guess, is the better term.
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But bpa is going to be the most common one.
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Notably, you'll see it on water bottles and say bpa free.
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Great, we got rid of bpa.
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The other issue with plastic and all those chemicals is you can just kind of switch the formula, make it into something else that's no longer regulated, done, done.
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They restart over.
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When those chemicals phthalates and bisephanol A or BPA are leaching into our pet's gums, they tend to break down and when they get consumed in there it will go through the stomach and will go through the large intestine and from there those chemicals leach out.
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And those chemicals are what gives the plastic its certain flexibility, its certain rigidity, whatever it is.
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When those chemicals leach out it can cause that toy that was once flexible, once should have passed through.
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It just makes it a solid mass.
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So that's getting stuck into the intestines of our pets.
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That has to be removed surgically.
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We're also seeing leakages between these chemicals chemicals, they're called endocrine disrupting chemicals, and the vast majority of the ones introduced to plastic, are causing dementia-like and alzheimer's-like symptoms associated with rats, and if it's going to be happening in your rats, it's likely to be happening in your dogs.
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That's not to include just the general choking hazard that plastic plays when they're consuming it, because it just breaks off.
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It's formed sharp edges as well.
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A stick can form a sharp edge, but it's more likely to break down and become better chewing and just break down further once it gets into the stomach.
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Plastic just doesn't do that.
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It becomes that solid block.
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Right, and so it's not just about the consumption, the swallowing of something that's made out of plastic, but it's literally getting into their bodies, through their gums and into their bloodstreams and things like that.
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So you've got you know.
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It's basically hitting our animals in multiple different directions.
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So we're talking about, obviously we've got the issue we need to be concerned about what's in our pet's food, but then packaging toys is there anything else?
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Are water bowls?
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Things like that, are all of those things, things we need to be looking at and saying what is this thing made out of, instead of making assumptions.
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Yeah, I mean, if it's plastic, it's probably going to be dangerous.
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These chemicals are also associated with embryo development in dogs.
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You have potentially infertility.
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We're seeing the same thing in humans.
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Unfortunately, liver and kidney damage is also associated with some of these 16,000 different chemicals.
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We're also seeing cancer on the rise in dogs, with 50% of dogs over 10 being afflicted, and these are rates that have been growing and growing with the same time as plastic, which doesn't necessarily mean they're related, but we're seeing more and more connections between the two with more and more science that's coming out and people are really starting to pay attention to that linkage.
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When it comes to plastic bottle or plastic bowls, I should say in this case, just try to move away from them.
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Make the switch over to ceramic, make the switch over to stainless steel.
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They are truly inert compared to plastic that we thought was inert.
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Stainless steel they are truly inert compared to plastic that we thought was inert.
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That means it's just not going to flake off.
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You're not going to be ingesting as much of those plastic bits that are causing these issues later down the road.
00:17:14.179 --> 00:17:40.407
Yeah, I've started looking at everything differently and we've got a whole cabinet of various types and sizes and whatever of pet bowls in our animal rescue cabinet, let alone my own personal cabinet, and I actually came across a couple of plastic bowls that I got rid of but that, you know, somebody had obviously chewed on those, so they were chewing on it like a toy, so they were getting it there, and then I'm sure, every time they're licking it, you know they're being exposed to chemicals.
00:17:40.868 --> 00:17:48.932
But if people need a little extra motivation, even beyond the ingestion of chemicals, is if you're still using plastic bowls.
00:17:48.932 --> 00:18:08.775
Every scratch, every microscopic scratch, is a potential place for bacteria, you know, and other nasty things to hide, especially because more than likely you're hand washing those things as opposed to putting your dog bowls plastic dog bowls in the dishwasher, and so there's a whole host of other problems with those plastic bowls.
00:18:08.775 --> 00:18:11.554
So, definitely, you know, stainless is the way to go.
00:18:11.554 --> 00:18:26.862
It may not be as cute, although you can get some super cute ceramic ones, but yeah, that's, I mean, that's at least a great place that pet parents can start is by their, you know, the thing that your dog is going to be eating and drinking out of, or your cat or whatever other pet, every single day exposure.
00:18:27.342 --> 00:18:30.182
It's also a pretty easy transition when it comes to those things.
00:18:30.182 --> 00:18:38.431
A stainless steel bowl is going to be about the same price as a plastic bowl, thankfully, and that stainless steel bowl is going to last a lot longer.
00:18:38.431 --> 00:18:41.405
Your pet's less likely to chew on it and chew it up.
00:18:41.405 --> 00:18:52.217
I've worked at a vet clinic all through high school and volunteered at SPCA and things, so I've seen dogs chew up stainless steel bowls, but much less common than the plastic ones, and I'm sure you've seen the same thing.
00:18:52.545 --> 00:18:54.269
Exactly, yeah, exactly.
00:18:54.269 --> 00:18:56.273
So what would be some?
00:18:56.273 --> 00:19:02.636
I mean, we talked about stainless, we talked about ceramic, but what about when it comes to like pet toys and other products?
00:19:02.636 --> 00:19:09.601
Like, let's just say, I got a new puppy for argument's sake and I was going to go out and buy their whole kitten caboodle.
00:19:09.601 --> 00:19:11.989
What are some materials I should be looking for?
00:19:11.989 --> 00:19:15.145
And then we'll talk about pet food ingredients, because that's a whole other thing.
00:19:15.707 --> 00:19:22.068
Yeah, when it comes to pet toys and things, make the switch to natural like, make the switch to natural fibers, make the switch to those.
00:19:22.249 --> 00:19:28.191
You know they sound gross, like the beef trapezius, I think, is what they sell at the store, those bully stits and things.
00:19:28.191 --> 00:19:34.744
Rawhide is typically not advised for pets, so just consult your vet before switching to rawhides.
00:19:34.744 --> 00:19:38.957
They tend to become a choking hazard, similar to a lot of plastic toys.
00:19:38.957 --> 00:20:04.483
But also one easy thing we've done in my household and we thought it was really funny, because we've spent hundreds of dollars over the course of the five years we've had Buzz on dog toys and then we realized his favorite toy is an old 100% cotton T-shirt that I've just had laying around, that I tore up tied into knots and that's his favorite toy now, tied into knots and that's his favorite toy now.
00:20:04.483 --> 00:20:10.492
So we're able to kind of start getting rid of the plastic toys and start replacing them with those 100% cotton toys, with it just being a T-shirt tied into balls.
00:20:10.492 --> 00:20:13.574
Also, look for all-natural rubber toys.
00:20:13.574 --> 00:20:14.730
There are some out there.
00:20:14.730 --> 00:20:20.175
They can last longer than the plastic ones and they don't typically carry as many of those additive chemicals.
00:20:21.506 --> 00:20:26.022
Yeah, it's amazing how creative people can get with making dog and cat toys.
00:20:26.022 --> 00:20:29.696
I know that we've had a lot of things show up here at the rescue.
00:20:29.696 --> 00:20:33.189
You know, a cat toy made out of a wine cork or whatever it might be.
00:20:33.189 --> 00:20:39.269
So, yeah, I mean, how cheap and easy is that to take an old t-shirt, cut it into strips, braid it, put some knots in it.
00:20:39.269 --> 00:20:45.738
Now you've got a tug toy that I mean, with all things you're going to want to keep an eye on it, that they're not, you know, chewing off big chunks.
00:20:45.878 --> 00:20:53.511
But you know, not only if you save yourself some money, but you save yourself, you saved your pet some exposure to chemicals just by doing something, something super simple.
00:20:53.511 --> 00:20:59.770
And there's lots of other like I know that the report mentioned things like toys made out of hemp and other other natural products.
00:20:59.770 --> 00:21:01.053
So just look at there's so many out there.
00:21:01.053 --> 00:21:02.474
Just look at there's so many out there.
00:21:02.474 --> 00:21:26.710
Just look at what the thing is made out of and you know that's a great place to start up of plastic and those are made up of synthetic fibers that come from plastic.
00:21:26.730 --> 00:21:29.940
They may have a flashier name, um, they may sound like they're not as cheap, but they're plastic.
00:21:29.940 --> 00:21:37.951
They've just been advertised really well as this new great material that comes from the ground and I guess technically it does.
00:21:37.951 --> 00:21:44.009
If you count, you know, extraction of petroleum and then all these additive chemicals, and then down the road it becomes this fiber.
00:21:44.852 --> 00:21:57.054
But just look for those natural ones, those hemp's, those wools, those cottons yeah, now what's being done about this, I guess, or what could be done about this, potentially, if we don't have, you know, the proper oversight?
00:21:57.054 --> 00:21:58.598
I know we have afco.
00:21:58.598 --> 00:22:07.787
That, you know, is a voluntary organization that provides input on on pet but doesn't really have any enforcement control.
00:22:07.787 --> 00:22:09.852
How does this get fixed?
00:22:10.854 --> 00:22:11.134
Well.
00:22:11.134 --> 00:22:21.751
So if you blow it up to the largest scale possible, we have something called the Global Plastics Treaty that we're trying to get signed and we're trying to make sure that it's the most comprehensive treaty.
00:22:21.751 --> 00:22:25.271
A great comparison to draw is the Paris Climate Accords.
00:22:25.271 --> 00:22:31.310
That's the first thing people come to when they think international treaty on something, and on the environment at least.
00:22:31.310 --> 00:22:36.017
But what we really want to model after is something that's like the Montreal Protocol.
00:22:36.017 --> 00:22:38.212
We always hear about the hole in the ozone layer.
00:22:38.212 --> 00:22:45.790
Now we don't talk about it as much because we enacted these policies that have allowed it to start healing, and that's through the Montreal Protocols.
00:22:45.790 --> 00:22:52.231
But the Paris Climate Agreement it was voluntary measures and that kind of means countries can drop out whenever Coming back.
00:22:52.271 --> 00:22:53.737
We have the Global Plastics Treaty.
00:22:53.737 --> 00:23:04.289
We're going into our fifth session of negotiations, where countries are coming together to mark out what they want to see, and we want to make sure it's a legally binding treaty that kind of controls the production of plastic.
00:23:04.289 --> 00:23:14.606
So that's, from the top, like we want to cut production of plastic through this international treaty that has punishment in it, like you know, countries that they disobey or they don't want to follow this rule.
00:23:14.606 --> 00:23:16.472
There's something to hold them accountable.
00:23:16.472 --> 00:23:27.700
When we come back down to the pet food level, there is AFCO, but in July of this year it was actually announced that AFCO is no longer going to be that advisory body to the FDA.
00:23:27.700 --> 00:23:35.433
So as of October 1st, I believe, is when AFCO is stepping down, fda is on the lookout for somebody new to enforce it.
00:23:36.445 --> 00:23:46.212
We have a letter writing campaign currently on our website to kind of call for the FDA to actually do some enforcement and maybe hand it off to a different regulatory body that can actually handle it and actually pay attention.
00:23:46.212 --> 00:23:53.976
And then it's just kind of staying on top of those manufacturers of just like we don't want to see this plastic crap in our food anymore.
00:23:53.976 --> 00:23:57.613
We want to see what's actually going into the food so we can kind of monitor it better.
00:23:57.613 --> 00:24:06.538
And just means more accountability from them, whether that's coming from the government or the consumer, just to be like, look, this company is willing to tell us what's in their food.
00:24:06.538 --> 00:24:07.445
We're going to make the switch.
00:24:07.445 --> 00:24:10.291
That way FDA can do the same thing.
00:24:10.291 --> 00:24:14.328
If they're not going to tell us what's in the food, they cannot sell it to the people.
00:24:14.328 --> 00:24:32.932
That's just a couple of things we can do and then it's just staying on top of them, just keep calling them out, just keep up the force on both the FDA the government, government and these manufacturing processes, yeah, and what?
00:24:32.951 --> 00:24:33.453
what about as pet parents?
00:24:33.453 --> 00:24:33.835
I mean, what could?
00:24:33.835 --> 00:24:37.267
Because you know I'm kind of of the belief and we've it's come up on the show before is that, uh, like we did an episode, uh, with a bunny rescue?
00:24:37.267 --> 00:24:54.756
And you know, if you don't want bunnies to be used for food or you want to at least limit it, like if, if there, you know, there's a, there's that fine balance where you know a dog could die because that's the only meat that it can eat, and dogs eat meat, they're not vegetarians and et cetera, et cetera.
00:24:54.816 --> 00:25:02.733
Okay, so let's say you're going to limit it, but everybody's dog doesn't need to eat a companion animal, like a bunny kind of thing, and so you know.
00:25:02.733 --> 00:25:15.016
The way that we show our displeasure at that is look at the ingredients on your pet food, your pet treats, and if it has rabbit and you don't want rabbits to be killed for pet food unnecessarily, don't buy rabbit based pet food.
00:25:15.016 --> 00:25:24.054
So I mean, it seems pretty simple, but I mean how important it is that we vote with our dollars and our purchases for what we want or don't want in our pets products.
00:25:30.204 --> 00:25:32.575
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of where a lot of us feel like we have the most powers when it comes to those buying and selling.
00:25:32.575 --> 00:25:32.916
And it truly is.
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