Picking Up the Poop Without the Plastic
I used to console myself for forgetting my canvas grocery bags during impromptu market runs with the thought that I would soon be recycling the plastic bags anyway. In a sense, that is. They wouldn’t be melted down and re-manufactured into other useful plastic items. But, these new plastic bags would remain in their original form and become reassigned to the duties of useful doggy poop bags.Somehow, knowing they were being used in such a primitive, yet helpful, capacity made it easier for me to justify that, even after its second use, this tidy package would languish in a landfill for at least a thousand years. While admittedly not great for the planet, the doggy mess had been cleaned up - and thanks to my supply of plastic bags, I didn’t have to touch the poop.
Recently, however, alternatives to the plastic poop bag have become available. A friend recommended using old newspapers to carry the poops to the trashcan: paper biodegrades and poop is out of sight. Not a bad idea but not really my style as my dog goes twice, sometimes three times, on one walk. I’m not resilient enough to match his digestive fortitude by juggling two or three piles of poop swathed in brightly colored newspaper.
Then there is the Pooper Scooper. Also, not a bad idea but here I have to make a canine admission. I inherited my 10-year-old Jack Russell Terrier from my new husband who never took the pains to train him. A walk with Fido involves constant tugging and path corrections, sometimes, even fast escapes from other neighborhood poopers because he’s a small dog that likes to prove his size doesn’t make him any less dogly. This makes it challenging, to say the least, to hold onto Fido while he tries to tackle the local Doberman and not drop the rather cumbersome Pooper Scooper. And while I don’t mind carrying some things on these doggy outings, a long and heavy stick with a shovel on the end is not my preferred accessory.
So, instead of using the oh-so-convenient plastic bags that clog the arteries of the planet, I am now using faux plastic (non-polyethylene-based), biodegradable bags that take about a month to decompose. It’s the perfect solution and didn’t take a whole lot of retraining for my 10 year-old step-son, who shares the responsibility of walking Fido, nor for his dad, who proves you can teach an old dog new tricks (just kidding, Honey!)
The bags are great, a little thinner than their toxic counterparts but just as efficient. They are compostable as well as biodegradable and even available in some grocery stores.
According to the National Geographic website, 10 million tons of dog and cat poop is generated annually in the United States. That’s a lot of poop and a lot of plastic bags preserving them. But even worse, poop that is left to languish on grass or dirt goes into our groundwater and contaminates our natural resources.
I recently read that San Francisco has figured out a way to harness the power of the poop into natural energy. One ton of dog poop can heat a New England home for two weeks, it said. Inspired by the article, I went online to my city’s webpage and found the people whose position titles most closely resembled ones I assumed would be in charge of ordering the city’s doggy poop bags conveniently placed at the entrances of local parks. I emailed them my biodegradable bag discovery and asked what it would take to replace the landfill choking plastic bags with the refreshingly biodegradable ones.
The director of the department (I emailed the entire department) emailed me back the same day, thanking me for being so concerned and helping them be more helpful to the city. She said she didn’t see switching as a problem and forwarded my information to the actual person responsible for ordering the bags. It’s so easy to make a difference, sometimes just one email.
BioBag Dog Waste Bags and Spike’s Biodegradable Business Bags can be ordered online and are available at some grocery stores. Pooper Scoopers, for more cooperative dogs, can also be ordered online or are available in most pet stores.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Rina Baraz Nehdar - Ecoist
Rina is the girl next door who’s been around the block. She started her career as a news reporter for NBC affiliate KTVF in Fairbanks, Alaska. There she strained to see through the winter darkness to file her stories on the environment. After catching a chill, she returned to her hometown of Santa Monica and worked in various newsrooms, including KCOP and the now defunct cable news channel OCN. She reported for a time for news radio KPFK, after which she worked to better the lives of women by producing stories for Lifetime’s Speaking of Women’s Health. She took a leave from news to lead health seminars with English speaking students around the world focusing on topics such as making healthy choices about tobacco and other drugs as well as delaying the use of alcohol. Recently, she has put away her traveling shoes to settle down with her new husband and stepson in the quaint town of Agoura Hills, California.
Tags: biodegradable bags, dog poop, poop clean up