THE NEXT TIME YOUR DOG POOPS, THINK ABOUT THIS …
She pulled into the parking space as neat and clean as her new silver metallic, 2010 Volvo XC70 T6. She opened the hatchback to let her dogs out to play in the dog park. Two strong-looking German Shepherds, who immediately jumped out then sat on the pavement and waited for her command. She gathered some things to take with her into the dog park, including the requisite plastic bags to pick up any dog poop that her companions were likely to deposit.
She closed the hatchback and I couldn’t help notice the three bumper stickers that she had neatly placed on it.
One said, “Recycle.” The middle one said, “Simplify.” The third one said, “Recycle Again.”
As she walked toward the gate, she simply said, “Adolph, Wolfgang, come.” And they did, quickly and quietly. They followed her inside and stayed with her as she walked to a bench to sit. As she sat, so did they. These were some very well-trained dogs.
Finally, she said, “Adolph, Wolfgang … play,” and they were immediately off and running.
I watched as the dogs did their dog park thing for about ten minutes. Then I saw something I’ve never seen before.
One of her dogs assumed the pooping posture (and yes, I have seen that before). He did what he needed to do and then, (and here’s the part I hadn’t seen before), barked twice and sat next to his deposit.
“Are you kidding me?” I thought. Who the heck trains their dogs to tell you when they’ve pooped and then wait next to it so you know exactly where to pick it up?
She walked over to the dog, said, “Good boy, Adolph,” and dutifully picked up his deposit. She tied the plastic bag well and put it in the park’s garbage can.
But, wai-i-it a minute. This is a young lady who apparently believes in recycling so much she put two bumper stickers on her new and expensive car. She proclaims that we need to, not just recycle, but to recycle again. But she just put biodegradable dog poop into a non-biodegradable plastic bag, then put that bag into a regular garbage can which will ultimately end up compacted and dumped into a landfill where it will, that's right … not degrade.
Wait. What?
Dog poop, which is a biodegradable waste product and can be safely flushed down a toilet the same as human waste, was being put into a plastic bag to be preserved for a thousand years buried in a landfill somewhere.
And then the numbers started building up. An average German Shepherd weighs about 75 pounds and produces about 500 pounds of waste per year. She owned two dogs, who would produce about a half-ton of poop per year, which she was preserving instead of recycling.
There are an estimated 77 Million dogs in the U.S., according to the Humane Society. Those dogs produce an estimated 29,000 tons of poop, according to FlushDoggy.com.
Twenty-nine Thousand TONS, most of which is not recycled but is wrapped up in little plastic bags and thrown in landfills.
Not exactly recyclable behavior, is it?
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