The Straight Scoop on Dog Poop

On the face, this is a bizarre little topic for a progressive blog I know, but using a plastic bag and throwing dog poop in the trash is not a environmentally sound solution. Here are statistics regarding the impact of canine crap in the landfill:

• The average person in the U.S. generates about 4 pounds of solid trash per day.
• At that rate, the United States generates 210 million tons of trash per year.
• There are an estimated 44.8 million dogs in the United States.
• Dogs on average poop 23 times a week! That’s an average of 15 – 30 pounds of waste per dog per year.
• In a city of 100,000 people or 43 square miles, dogs can generate about 2 1/2 tons of feces per day. That’s almost 2 million pounds a year.
• A plastic bag can take up to 1,000 years to decompose in the landfill.

add to this that uncollected poop goes through the storm sewer system and may contaminate the water supply.

Given these facts, it makes sense to rethink doggie doo disposal. How about flushing it down the toilet (or poo down the loo)? For those of you who already do this, you are more of a genius than I. But there is still the issue of picking the stuff up.

In my quest for greener dog waste disposal, I ran across Flush Puppies. These are biodegradable disposal, flushable doggie waste bags. I'm not endorsing them, but I've ordered some to try with my two mid-sized dogs and I'll let you know how it goes.