How can I “recycle” dog poop?
If you thought my fingernail question was icky a few weeks ago, you might want to look away now.
We’ve had an email from Anne, who says “my suggestion is dog poop!”:
I don’t have a fenced yard, so I walk my dog, so I have lots of little bags of dog poop. I’m told it’s not ok to use in a vegetable garden–maybe a flower garden? any other ideas?
The vegetable thing (or compost heap for use of vegetable garden thing) is because poop from carnivores or omnivores can contain harmful organisms that aren’t destroyed during the standard composting process. (Some hot composting systems claim to be able to do it but I’m not 100% convinced.)
To be on the safe side, I probably wouldn’t want to include it in compost to be used anywhere – because the neighbourhood kids go through phases of digging in our garden and they’re not opposed to eating while doing so, and also I’m not organised enough to keep track of what’s a poo-bed and what isn’t, so would probably end up planting carrots in poo-central or something.
But that does beg the question: can anything be done with it instead of just winging it into the landfill? Any suggestions to minimise the landfill impact (biodegradable bags?)?
(Photo by Minita – I went with a picture of a cute (albeit sad) dog instead of its poo. I thought most people would prefer that. Plus, John and I just played a caption contest thing with it: “you mean I have to stop pooping until someone comes up with an answer?” etc :) )
There is such a product as a “Green Toilet” It is a special designed, open bottled pot that is sunk partly into the ground. Animal waste is then added to it and the “Toilet” comes with some special accelerator that covers the waste and breaks it down into the ground.
Its recommended that every few months you move it around so its not always in the same place. Even with the green toilet it is advisable to keep it away from children play areas and edible plants.
These toilets can be found at some Home improvement stores such as focus / B&Q. I believe the concept works similiarly to the Bokashi system.
My mom had this theory – never tie the plastic bags with the poo in it. This way they will get air and the poo will break down and not be left sealed up in the baggies. This is what I’ve been doing as well. For a while I used to bring it home and flush it and rinse and reuse the baggies.But that got to be just too icky. Biodegradable bags are hard to find. The bettter dog food makes for more smaller poos. The worst are the diet foods – extra filler and fibre!
What a delightful subject…
try a green cone if you have a garden. http://www.greencone.com/how_it_works.asp?prid=10
I haven’t tried it but it looks good and good for composting other waste too!
Take the poo and spread it on your carpark. If you spread it thin enough on a sunny day, it will dry up and blow away in a matter of hours. I learned to do this with my own poo when I was backpacking through Omaha, Nebraska, in the United States.
There used to be people who would pay good money for dog poo (or ‘pure’) to used in the tanning industry:
http://www.birminghampost.net/comment/birmingham-columnists/chris-upton/2008/08/14/the-pure-hell-of-mucking-about-with-historic-leather-65233-21532550/
Bio Bag makes a good biodegradable dog poo bag. They come in a pack of 50 for around $5.00(US). You can find them at drugstore.com or greenfeet.com. I don’t have a dog, but I use them for picking up small trash or collecting organic waste for compost.
When I lived in Guelph in Canada, they had a “Wet” and “Dry” system which was kind of self-explanatory so pet-poo would go in the wet along with food waste & garden waste. Dry was everything else but was clean. They managed to reycyle or reuse or capture power from 60% of the household waste.
Another option is building a solar toilet specifically for the dog poop. Solar toilets use the power of the sun to burn up human/pet waste and make it safe to compost, at least for non food sources. http://www.longbrancheec.org/pubs/composting_toilet.html is one reference.
Personally, I was thinking of building something like this: http://www.biodieselcommunity.org/solarpreheatoil/ but smaller for a single 5g bucket, painted black of course. You’d need an exhaust chimney as well, painted black too and also a vent on the front to help evaporate the poop.
I just use flushable dog poop bags and flush poop down the toilet. Easiest and most eco-friendly way to deal with dog poop.
Flushable Dog Poop Bags
If you have a garden, you can dig a biggish hole (20 x 20 cm), drop in the dog poop and shovel some sand over it, to stop it from stinking. We did that for years in our garden. Each time the hole is full, you move to another spot and dig the next one, thereby fertilising the soil of the whole garden over time. It makes excellent fertiliser, as far as I can tell.
People in India, use cowpats (flattened piles of cow dung) for fuel. Maybe you can look into a new kind of fuel – “doggy diesel”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_dung
mind you, dogs don’t eat as much grass as cattle but it might be worth researching.
hi i would love to have you dogs poo
if you live in uk
i can ues it
Shaun you would be more than welcome to my dogs poo. If you are seriously interested please get in touch – home@rmcalinden13.orangehome.co.uk
hi there if you still want some dog poo i have planty i have a newfoundland hes like a horse so you can see why i have alot of poo
where in the uk are you/.?
Use an old dustbin with some vegatable matter in it and empty your dog poo directly in. deposit common garden slugs inside the bin and they will consume it leaving a compost like bye product
Personally,. I use the bag and bio-degradable bags from http://www.dickybag.com. Then, I just put the dog waste (and bag) straight into my compost heap at home after my walk.
Have you tried Flush Doggy flushable dog poop bags before? It’s so easy to use and no more stinky garbage.