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UK households turn to cat litter due to shortage of wood pellets: Report

British households with wood pellet stoves are resorting to burning cat litter to heat their homes due to a growing shortage of pellets. (File photo)

In an attempt to beat the cold in the unfolding winter, British households are now resorting to burning cat litter to heat their homes due to a shortage of wood pellets triggered by the current war in Ukraine, a report says.

The plethora of sanctions imposed by the United States and its European allies against Russia since February last year, when Moscow began an ongoing military operation in Ukraine, has led to a growing shortage of wood pellets in Europe in particular, as Russia is a major exporter of pellet fuel.

The punitive measures against Russia and the subsequent shortage of wood pellets have triggered soaring costs for the product, increasingly pressuring homes and businesses that use biomass boilers to beat the cold of the winter, whose depths are approaching.

According to a new report by the UK newspaper Daily Telegraph, British households, using wood pellet boilers, have now resorted as an alternative to burning cat litter in their pellet stoves, as gas prices remain high.

The report, citing Jollyes, one of the biggest pet food stores in Britain, said that the company's cat litter suppliers were "working overtime to fulfill demand" for wood pellets, after sales significantly soared earlier this winter.

It came amid "a lot of chatter on social media about using wood pellet cat litter as household fuel in the last few weeks around the cost of living crisis," Jollyes said.

Since the onset of the war in Ukraine, British people have been experiencing jumps in their energy bills, particularly since the beginning of the winter.

Earlier in January, Britain's largest supplier of firewood, Certainly Wood, said it expected sales to rise by as much as a fifth this winter, as households sought alternatives to turning on the heating.

According to Certainly Wood, it costs households around £600 to have enough firewood to run a log burner stove on evenings and weekends over winter.

Thousands of households across the UK are now heating their homes by burning wood pellets, with people having replaced their gas or oil-fired boilers with wood pellet boilers.


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