Confusion about choosing the chemically appropriate kitty litter comes up more frequently than one might expect. While a zeolite clay based litter is the best c

Confusion about choosing the chemically appropriate kitty litter comes up more frequently than one might expect. While a zeolite clay based litter is the best choice for nuclear waste, the message here isn't that it's the best choice for all purposes. It turns out that different applications require different kitty litters! Oyster mushrooms can be grown on lots of "plant based" substrates. One easily available substrate is kitty litter made from recycled newspaper, such as the "Yesterday's News" brand. If you to use a zeolite based litter here (even if it had organic certifications) your mushrooms would grow poorly if at all: http://www.namyco.org/docs/grow_oyster_mushrooms_on_kitty_litter_illustrated.pdf http://www.namyco.org/docs/grow_oyster_mushrooms_on_kitty_li.... But for bonsai, both clay and recycled newspaper would be a disaster. Here, you need a litter made from "diatomaceous earth", such as Tesco's "Low Dust Lightweight Catlitter": http://www.bonsai4me.com/Basics/Basicscatlitter.htm http://www.bonsai4me.com/Basics/Basicscatlitter.htm. Tomato seedlings have about the same requirements as bonsai: http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=22329 http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=22329. I mention these partly as a joke, but there actually is a deep commonality here. All of these are real world situations where the specific type of cat litter used has implications, and in all of them, despite the authors' strong desire for precision and clarity, you find forums full of people who take the "shortcut" of using the wrong type of cat litter and then complaining that it doesn't work. I'm not sure what the solution is, but in the future it sure would be great if we could troubleshoot the instructions in the mushroom, tomato and bonsai communities rather than jumping straight to nuclear waste disposal. Does anyone have examples of other communities making odd uses of specific types of kitty litter?