Cat litter isn’t gravel. It’s clay-based (at least it was when we had cats; I can’t speak to the newer / fancier stuff). Pouring it into the ruts would briefly help level them but it would break down very quickly and you’re back to the ruts, and sticky mushed-up clay everywhere.
This would have been my solution.
Wouldn’t it be pretty trashy to just leave your garbage can out at the curb in most neighborhoods? Some towns also have ordinances that require garbage cans to be out of sight when it isn’t collection day.
This.
I got the Cansporter and it works great for me. I had to have a hitch installed first so it wasn’t a cheap solution, but my increasing decrepitude made dragging a wheelie bin up and down a tenth of a mile packing gravel driveway more than I could manage. The limitation is how heavy a bin you can lift to lock it up in place. I just save the trash bags in the garage, carry them in the car down to where I release the Cansporter on the frontage road, and pop them in there.
I should have updated the thread, as I have a successful project outcome to report. Since post 14, a friend did the drilling on my 5x5x5 steel angle. I mounted the Cansporter to the angle to the hitch, so the quite thin Cansporter has six bolts through its back vertical surface and one 3/4" bolt with a heavy washer through its bottom horizontal surface. I have been using this for a few weeks now and it has not failed.
I roll the bin up to this thing, leaning it just so, and getting the bin’s lifting bar into the opening on the end of the Cansporter hinged part. Then I push the bin handle up and forward. I think I can do this reasonably comfortably with around one hundred pounds in the bin, maybe a bit more, because the car is handling most of the weight and I’m pivoting with a decent lever arm rather than lifting. Then I can back down the driveway, and go back and forth without having to turn the car around twice on each trip.
On the downside the Cansporter is nowhere near sturdy enough to carry what they claim it can, 180 pounds, when it is mounted using the bottom surface. This is what their instructions show for mounting it on the kind of hitch my car has on it. After the first one failed they suggested I mount it by its vertical surface, which does look like it would be stronger. But I would have had to get some kind of very sturdy custom ball mount made to allow this. I think my time, the time a machinist friend spent on it, and the cost of the angle iron would probably add up to $300 or so if it were a paid job.
On the upside, my angle iron let me mount it from both surfaces. The Cansporter maker did quickly send me a new “base” (the mounting unit that does not pivot in use and supports everything else) as soon as we corresponded by email (I had included several photos). They didn’t make me send the old bent one back first or create any obstacles and they were nice about discussing the problem and offered a total refund if I wanted. And it does work as conveniently as their advertising suggests.