Well my paper towels are recycled paper and I use them very meanly - I use tea towels for most jobs requiring absorbency, though not for cat sick.

We have very different customs on composting over here in the UK. We're told not to put bread, meat, fish or cheese in the compost because that will attract rats - just raw veggy peelings, teabags and cardboard/brown paper. Ignore wild claims that the plastic bags on magazines is compostable - it isn't.

We have a cat called Satsuma-san to recycle meat and we just don't throw out very much. I make broth with the carcass of a chicken, for instance, which the cat likes as much as me (just so long as I don't put ginger in it.) Once the bones are cooked out I put them out where the seagulls can find them.

Writing annoying letters to corporations is the most useful thing you're doing, I think. Keep doing it.