Bought a bag of the red Walmart Special kitty litter last night ($2.78/bag in Arkansas)to experiment with. The "ingredient" listing just includes "Ground Clay". Elsewhere on the bag is verbiage saying "All Natural" and "Fragrance Free and Highly Absorbant". There is no manufacturer listed on the bag, just says "Marketed by Wal-Mart".
I soaked some of the product in water overnight to see what it would do. Its been 24 hours now, and there is no visible swelling of the individual granuals and many of granules are still hard. The stuff wouldn't roll into any kind of a decent thread. I'm thinking this stuff has to be calcium bentonite or some other kind of less active clay. The Benseal (Sodium Bentonite) we use for drilling at work swells visibly and softens up very quicky.
While this stuff may have some ability to decrease the permeability of a pond, I don't believe it is going to swell enough to seal up leaks the way sodium bentonite has the potential to do.
Anybody else experimented with the stuff lately?? Definitely not intending to dispute the information provided by the original poster, SoSauty, as there very well could be different sources of clay used regionally for the product or the source could have changed since 2006. Just curious if anybody else has tried using this stuff as a cheap source of bentonite lately and what their experiences may be??
