A cute pair of black kittens were saved from being crushed and shredded by recycling plant machinery in a narrow escape that led them to a foster home, where they are getting good care.
The kittens were dumped in a cardboard box that was picked up by a garbage truck and brought to a recycling plant in Canberra, Australia.
ACTNowaste education officer Shannon Langford-Salisbury took the kittens home and is caring for them with her housemate, James Kozaneck.
Shannon was touring the plant when the kittens were discovered by workers there.
“Some of the guys heard them crying and pulled them out of the bin. They were really dirty as it is so dusty in there and they were dehydrated and underweight,’ Shannon told Daily Mail Australia.
“‘It is an absolute miracle that they survived,” she said. ” They would have been thrown into the garbage truck which does crush the boxes, so they could have been crushed then.
‘”The box would then have been scooped up by an earth mover and put on a conveyor belt. It would have gone through sharp machinery which could have shredded them.
“I just grabbed them, put them in my shirt and decided to take them home so I could look after them.”
Piglet and Steve Buscemi, as the kittens are being called,made the news Wednesday after a video turned up showing James giving them a feeding. It is thought that the kittens had been trapped in the box for days before their rescue, and this was their first feeding with James, according to the Daily Mail.
James cuddles the kittens in the video, which appears to be drawn from a Periscope broadcast, as he tries to get them to take 5ml of kitten formula or milk from the bottle.
“We found them. One of our flat mates works for an undisclosed government waste facility and some a******* clearly didn’t want them and threw them in the bin,” James says on the video.
“Thankfully they made it through the waste production thing without being squished and someone saved them just before they went into the proper machinery.
“So we’re taking them on board and we’re going to try and look after them until we can find them proper homes.”
Shannon, as it turns out, studied animal science at university. She took the kittens to the vet, where she was given ointment to treat their eye infections and was told to bottle feed them small amounts per each feeding for at least the next week.
Shane Rattenbury from the governmental Territory and Municipal Services (TAMS) department said the kittens must have been intentionally dumped.
“It is hard to believe that the two kittens have survived the journey from a kerbside recycling bin all the way to the facility in Hume as all garbage and recycling materials are compressed inside the collection vehicles,” the TAMS Minister said.
Watch the Daily Mail video of James and the kittens at feeding time:
