Dog Group Finds Value in Dog Poo

It's not often that being a responsible pet owner is profitable, but some dog owners in Ithaca, N.Y. have found a way to make that happen (and clean up their dog park in the process).

The Tompkins County Dog Owner Group has teamed up with Cayuga Compost to find a useful solution for all the poo left behind in the city's dog park, reports the Associated Press. Considering some 50,000 dogs visit the park throughout the year (leaving about 1,000 pounds of waste monthly), it only made sense that the group not only wanted to find the best way to rid the park of the waste, but make money doing it.

Leon Kochian, a spokesman for TC DOG (the not-for-profit volunteer group involved in funding the project), biology professor at Cornell University and owner of a yellow Labrador retriever, told the Associated Press, "There was a large Dumpster at the park, and it was just always overflowing with plastic bags of dog poop. The amount was unbelievable."

So sure, it makes sense to compost the doggy doo. But why hasn't this been done before? The Associated Press reports that, according to an assistant program director for the U.S. Composting Council, dog and cat waste isn't suitable to use for vegetable gardens and topsoil because of parasites and pathogens.

When water runs off into local waterways, animal waste in compost can diminish the water quality, so in order to make the waste usable as compost, additional converters are necessary. It's not the simplest process, but with so much poo so readily available, it's about time someone decided to find a way to use (and sell) it!

While composting poo on a large, commercial scale is a new concept for the United States (where an estimated 20 billion pounds of poo is created yearly) Montreal, Canada has a dog park that's been incorporating this concept since 2004. According to the Associated Press, the efforts keep about a ton of dog waste and 7,000 plastic bags out of the landfill each year.

Does your area offer pet waste composting? Is it something you'd take part in? Tell us in the comments section.

Tags: compost, composting pet waste, CompostingPetWaste, dog park, dog poop, DogPark, DogPoop, green, pet waste, PetWaste