Plastic sucks! The origins of Zoorenity Pet Products

Ummm… hello there! Meatball here to tell you about a story that led to a new family business for us.

Way back in April of 2018, my Mom and Dad took a trip to Borneo, Malaysia. I wanted to go, until they told me it was in the jungle- with monkeys, bugs and worse of all, swimming in the ocean! No thank you! You see, I’m not big on the whole swimming thing. I can swim of course, but (sorry, mom and dad) think it’s pretty dumb of anybody to want to voluntarily get wet. So reluctantly, I told them they could go without me- but that I reserved the right to sleep all day and stay up all night eating trash and watching rubbish!

Fortunately, they took lots of pictures and told us pets all about it. If you like to read (and I mean read a book, because she writes A LOT), you can check out my mom’s very detailed blog to hear it all.

But I can summarize it for you: overall they said it was an amazing experience however, they were pretty upset about the trash and amount of deforestation they found.

Their two main motivations for wanting to travel at all, let alone to Borneo in particular, was to explore the jungles in hopes of seeing wild animals in their natural habitat and to scuba dive at the world famous Sipadan reefs.

When heading out to go on their diving portion of the trip, they stayed overnight in the city of Semporna. It’s a relatively good sized place, though from dad's perspective, pretty run-down, with a fair amount poverty.

It certainly wasn't the prettiest city and he was quite upset to see the amount of trash left in the forest, parks, roadways and ocean in general- however, this was significantly compounded after a major annual festival had concluded.

Leaving Semporna, there was an upsetting amount of litter floating around the docks as they boarded their boat to Mabul. Further out to sea you could still see the all too frequent plastic bag or bottle float by in an otherwise beautiful teal blue ocean.

Imagine arriving at Mabul: a picturesque, small tropical island. Vibrant blue ocean, with lush tropical green vegetation emerging out of white sand beaches. A paradise!

There was of course poverty here too and it was quite obvious which homes were the resort and which belonged to the indigenous people. Despite, being shanty huts though, there was a charm to the stilted buildings hovering above the beautiful sea. and the simplicity of their lives lived in such a magical place.

Unfortunately, mom stopped dead in her tracks as they walked along the dock when she saw the shore line. She whispered to dad to look down and try not to make a scene- or cry.

Just below the surface of the gorgeous waters, lie hidden a nightmare. The vibrant colors of plastic tainting the pristine beauty of nature with its unnatural appearance, as young children swam and played in the filth.

They were both truly appalled and I can only imagine my hackles would be up in protest.

Dad was completely in shock, not only that they paid a lot of money (and had to leave us!) to go there, but by the shear, overwhelming impact that plastic had made on this special place.

Once further out in the ocean, they said the diving was great. They saw giant sea turtles gracefully swimming by- one almost ran into mom! There were beautiful cuttlefish fantastically changing colors and sharks lurking around the reef on the hunt.

Yet they still saw plastic stuck in coral, littering an otherwise amazing underwater scene.

Despite, ultimately loving so much of the trip, dad just couldn’t shake the impact of seeing all that plastic floating around in the ocean and what it’s doing to our world.

Once home, he switched to reusable shopping bags more consistently- which is probably one of the biggest and easiest things you can do right away- and made a real commitment to reusable containers for packing lunches and leftovers, rather than plastic Ziplock bags.

But he kept questioning what else could be done. So did I!

I started looking around at us pups and realized, we too were creating a lot of waste at home. At the rescue's daycare (Motley Zoo's Rock Star Treatment) we were going thru a ridiculous amount of poop bags on a daily basis. I also looked at my sister, Little Mouse (who can't hold it all night) and two foster puppies we were taking care of and realized that the potty pads they were using were also creating an awful lot of garbage…heh…which became pretty obvious to dad too after a bear got into our garbage and scattered it all over the yard!

So, dad started researching ideas to help solve these problems and decided to start making our own alternatives. He started with poop bags that are completely compostable and reusable potty pads that can be washed and used hundreds of times.

Mom came up with the clever name, Zoorenity, and started putting together our website, Dad worked out how to get them produced, while Little Mouse and I practiced our modeling poses- and from there, we were in business!

Being an expert in the field of poop, I can tell you our bags are durable and dependable- something you want to be sure of when considering their use. Mom says they open easily (her pet peeve when others don't), feel nice and lock in the smell (believe me, I can make some stinky poop).

Our washable pads are way cool with a zebra print and hold in water better than any of the competitor products we tested (even when I peed right on the edge because ours have a special barrier). They're even tough enough enough to hold up to our dumb little sister, Satori, playing with them- who normally shreds the plastic ones just for fun….

Plus, of course, part of the proceeds of every sale are donated to help the 501c3 charity, Motley Zoo Animal Rescue, mom and dad started which has saved more than 3,000 animals since 2009.

I hope you consider barking out, raising a paw and joining our fight in reducing single use plastics!

Not only does it have a terrible affect on the places around the world, but look along any highway or park and you can see it’s impact here at home too.

But now you don't have to contribute to the problem- you can be a part of the solution with Zoorenity.

If there's one thing mom and dad have taught us, it's to do things right.

Zoorenity's growing line of dependable products is definitely worth checking out, if I do say so myself!

Thanks for listening, friends!

Your pal,

Meatball