THOUSAND OAKS : Student’s Cat Litter Wins Top Honors

If you’re browsing the grocery shelves for cat litter, you won’t find “Ecology Cat,” an environmentally sound product made from chopped up bits of recycled egg cartons. But you might some day.

Michael Marsh, a fifth-grader at Weathersfield School in Thousand Oaks, took top honors in the class’s invention convention Monday with his kitty litter creation.

The class was among a few others from throughout Ventura County participating in a national inventors competition sponsored by Invent America! Administered by the nonprofit U.S. Patent Model Foundation, the annual contest is aimed at inspiring elementary school children to solve problems.

At Weathersfield, the young inventors did both. Todd Cibere came up with the Survival Outdoor Stick, a hollow plastic walking stick that holds emergency hiking supplies, such as a knife, map and first-aid kit. Jeana Medrano devised an attachment for an arm cast to make it easier for the wearer to write.

Marsh’s idea originated with a question. Wasn’t there a way to recycle paper egg cartons and create a desirable product? Why not chop it up, deodorize it with a baking-soda and water solution, dry it in the oven and spread it in the litter box?

But would the cats turn up their noses at such a product?

“I tried it out on a friend’s cat, and it worked fine,” Michael said. Then he tried it on his cousin’s guinea pig. That worked fine too.

“This kid really thought it through,” said Alan A. Tratner, president of the Camarillo-based Inventors Workshop International, and the judge for the Weathersfield fifth-grade entries.

Not only is the product environmentally safe and made from recyclable materials, it can be used as compost after the cat has used it, Tratner said. What’s more, Ecology Cat comes in a recyclable brown paper bag, complete with a poem that promotes his environmentally conscious product.

Michael will go on to compete at the state level. The winners travel to Washington, D.C., in July for the finals.