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Harm Reduction Cats and Plastic Bags

Foreigner

Foreigner

Bluelighter
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
8,603
Location
The Cosmos
This will probably be a BL first but my post is for real and not a joke.

One of my family's cats is hopelessly addicted to eating plastic shopping bags. It has been going on for years now and he is showing signs of toxic overload and a sharp decline in his health. His liver is for sure starting to go, and his kidneys probably won't be far behind. I would call his illness advanced, but there is the possibility that maybe something can be done to help him.

I did some searching and it turns out this is not an uncommon problem. Vets just recommend keeping all plastic bags out of reach, but my cat will seriously open cupboards and start knocking things out in search of plastic shopping bags. When we think we've gotten rid of all accessible bags we will suddenly hear him scarfing one down that he's found somewhere we missed. If we come home with groceries, we can't leave the bags out for even a minute because he will start eating them. He is actually fiending for plastic! The vet websites can't really tell me why it happens.

Why do some cats get addicted to plastic bags while others don't? What is the chemical in the plastic that they're after, and does it mind alter them? It's like my cat is on kitty crack and I don't know what to do. He doesn't like catnip so it's not like I can substitute!
 
Ha! Yeah, my cats do the same thing sometimes....I try to keep them on a strict feeding schedule. I feed them two big meals twice with a snack in between. I have two cats. I give them a big bowl of dry food in the morning, a smaller snack of dry food in the afternoon and wet food for dinner.

They're very manipulative. they'll try to act as if they haven't been fed so that me or my girlfriend will give them extra food. they act out like small children sometimes....One of the things they do is eat plastic...probably because they've learned it upsets us and sometimes causes us to feed them to get them to stop....

You could try getting "cat grass"...which is basically potted grass...It seems to be somewhat effective at getting them to stop eating plants and other odd things around the house...but your cat seems much more into plastic than mine...I really don't know...
 
There's not a lot of leachable chemicals in plastic bags - Plastic bags are typically LDPE or HDPE, which are renowned for being chemically inert - and certainly not any psychoactive ones. I think it's just a fucked up cat instinct. I've seen several cats that seem to really like to lick plastic bags (and smell people's stinky shoes), but never eat them.

Wiki tells me cats eating wierd things could also be a sign of anemia, poor feeding, or stress.

I would not expect there to be a large toxic load from eating plastic bags. It's kind of like eating too much chewing gum. Then again, it would probably interfere with digestion, and if kitty gets a blockage in his intestines it is unlikely to resolve without surgery...

Aversion therapy may be the best option, see if you can add a fine spray of lemon oil, eucalyptus oil, a dusting of pepper or something else cats don't like around and on the plastic bags. Keep them out of reach as best you can. And give 'em a squirt with a mister bottle when you catch them.
 
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maybe switch your cat over to those reusable environmentally friendly bags or paper bags? my cats really enjoy those. They do love a good plastic bag too but they won't eat it. They will however eat cardboard from time to time, i hope that doesn't cause any issues down the road.

i'd just stop using plastic bags all together, my biggest concern would be the cat choking on a long piece of the bag or something. I've had to pull things like pieces of plastic bags or wrapping paper out of their mouths before, cats will just swallow them which is dangerous.
 
I suggest getting them hooked on catnip.

I mean I would probably bbe fucking around with plastic bags (self-suffocation) if I didn't have the brains/skills/appendages/language to acquire drugs
 
my cat never ate any bags, but she does sometimes run into the bag and then runs around with the bag covering her
 
I have to keep my cat from licking and eating plastic also. I've never figured it out. Sometimes for a treat I'll get a piece of packing tape and he'll lick the sticky part and sneeze all day long.
 
Thanks for the responses everyone!

The cat grass suggestion makes sense. The other cat goes outside so he eats grass all the time, but this one doesn't. Dogs and cats usually eat grass to give themselves the shits or to throw up, in order to cleanse. Whenever he eats plastic bags he ends up puking so maybe he is just looking for a purgative to clean out his body.

I'll try the grass and see if that helps.
 
I have a similiar problem with my cat, he eats cords. This scares me because one day he might chew through one and get electrocuted :( he's destroyed about 6 or 7 iPhone chargers (which with the new iPhone = $30 a pop) and also through more earbud cords than I can count and the home phone line so much we just got rid if the home phone. He knows when he does it he's getting in trouble, if I catch him he puts his ears back and runs. I joked about him being addicted to chords. Thing is, I can cover it with bitter stuff, I can punish him after he does it, I can hide all chords and he still some how manages to find em. I'm not sure if he likes how it feels in his mouth or what. What I noticed though is I give less attention for the behavior he does it less, of I don't let him in the room where chords are preasant (kept him out of the bedroom for a few months). I'm not sure if you can completely lock him out of the kitchen, maybe cover all bags with bitter stuf (they sell it at animal stores) and get a squirt gun everytime he does it. Might seem mean but its worth it for his health.
 
Maybe its the Bisphenol A that is mimicking estrogen. If your cat is a female and has been spayed it might be like a steroid supplement for it or something.
 
Sorry to bump this but lmfao, I usually search bluelight through startpage like this "site:bluelight.org search terms" and this showed up.

My fatass 14 year old cat likes to lie down on plastic bags, but never eaten any, first time I ever hear of this. But she really shows up and runs from wherever she was when I'm near the fridge, getting food from plastic bags, if it's cheese or ham she'll go nuts with the vocalizations ;)
 
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