New York group testing composting K9 poop from a dog park

[k9mania]

ITHACA, N.Y. -- A group of upstate New York dog owners thinks it has a can-do plan to profitably compost the tons of dog doo left behind by the roughly 50,000 canines that use the city's pooch park each year.
If their pilot project is successful, the Tompkins County Dog Owners Group and Cayuga Compost hope to market usable compost within the next two or three years.
More importantly, finding a use for the billions of pounds of pooch poop produced yearly in the United States could also lead to a significant reduction in the amount of waste material sent to landfills, said Leon Kochian, a spokesman for TC DOG, the not-for-profit volunteer group involved in funding the project.
"There was a large Dumpster at the park, and it was just always overflowing with plastic bags of dog poop. The amount was unbelievable," said Kochian, a Cornell University biology professor who owns a yellow Labrador retriever.
"Ithaca has a reputation as a green community. ... It made sense to us to find a way to compost and spare the landfill from all the plastic bags," Kochian said.
Dog and cat waste contain parasites and pathogens that make them unsuitable as compost for vegetable gardens and topsoil and can run off into local waterways and diminish water quality, said Cary Oshins, an assistant program director for the U.S. Composting Council. Composted pet waste can be used for deep-fill or other purposes.
There are any number of small-scale backyard pet waste composters and converters available on the market, but Oshins said he had not heard of any place in the U.S. trying to compost pet waste on such a grand scale.


See rest of article at:


http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/news/photos/story/843511.html




http://media.ledger-enquirer.com/smedia/2009/09/18/03/180-Pooch_Poop_Compoiting.sff.embedded.prod_affiliate. 70.jpg (http://media.ledger-enquirer.com/smedia/2009/09/18/03/497-Pooch_Poop_Compoiting.sff.standalone.prod_affiliat e.70.jpg) In this Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2009 photo, dog owners and their dogs congregate at the Treman Marina Dog Park in Ithaca, N.Y.. The park is among the first in the country to organize a dog waste composting effort to help reduce the waste of some of the 50,000 dogs that visit the park annually.
- Heather Ainsworth /AP Photo





http://us.bc.yahoo.com/b?P=8704b656-a5a5-11de-bca0-d7cfc92d04fb&T=19bkthmeh%2fX%3d1253424122%2fE%3d2022775853%2fR% 3dncnwsloc%2fK%3d5%2fV%3d8.1%2fW%3d0%2fY%3dPARTNER _US%2fF%3d566067926%2fH%3dYWx0c3BpZD0iOTY3MjgzMTU0 IiBzZXJ2ZUlkPSI4NzA0YjY1Ni1hNWE1LTExZGUtYmNhMC1kN2 NmYzkyZDA0ZmIiIHNpdGVJZD0iMTkzMjU1MSIgdFN0bXA9IjEy NTM0MjQxMjIxMTA3OTMiIHRhcmdldD0iX3RvcCIg%2fQ%3d-1%2fS%3d1%2fJ%3d8CA8B444&U=128olglki%2fN%3dfYo_BES0rog-%2fC%3d-1%2fD%3dLREC%2fB%3d-1%2fV%3d4

[turfgirl]

:mad: I don't like the sound of that any better than what happened here on Friday. About l5 miles from here they decided to use :eek: "HUMAN waste" as fertilizer on a farm and when the neighbours found out decided to protest and called in the TV station here. Well the trucks that were there ready to unload took off when they saw the cameras (it is legal apparently & approved by the Ministry of the Environment). The residents were warned that there would be an odour but apparently it was REALLY foul. I am all for being "green" but I am sorry this goes way beyond, I would never eat anything comming out of this farm. I kindda think the dog thing is just as bad, they cannot convince me that all the germs etc are gone. Susan

[Shara]

:mad: I don't like the sound of that any better than what happened here on Friday. About l5 miles from here they decided to use :eek: "HUMAN waste" as fertilizer on a farm and when the neighbours found out decided to protest and called in the TV station here. Well the trucks that were there ready to unload took off when they saw the cameras (it is legal apparently & approved by the Ministry of the Environment). The residents were warned that there would be an odour but apparently it was REALLY foul. I am all for being "green" but I am sorry this goes way beyond, I would never eat anything comming out of this farm. I kindda think the dog thing is just as bad, they cannot convince me that all the germs etc are gone. Susan
I agree.

I have thought about getting those doggy dooly things you can dig a hole in the backyard, and tehy are practically mini-septic systems for dog poo, but I thought that was too much...

You are just asking for trouble when you want to recyle #2...human form especially!!!

[Labman]

I would rather not see it preserved for all time in plastic bags in landfills. I think composting makes sense, but as stated not to be used on food sources. There are plenty of other possible uses including maintaining the park.

[ann_hawes]

I didn't see anywhere in the article that it was going to be used to fertilize human grade gardens. I think it's a great idea if the by-product is used for several other purposes. I have 3 dog waste septic tanks in different areas of my yard. All they do is supply fertilizer to a lawn. It's far better than leaving it on top of the lawn or throwing it into landfills. We need to be open minded enough to come explore sensible ways to dispose of waste from our pets. In large cities, the amounts of waste going into landfills is staggering.

[k9mania]

Here is an article from the SF are about the dog poop situation. I do believe that I posted about this when SF thought they were going to use it for energy. This update shows that an idea is not a good idea until someone can figure out how to do it:D:D
An eco-friendly solution to the dog-doo dilemma?

A few years ago, San Francisco was slated to be the first city in the United States to finally harness the power of poo.
Back in early 2006, it seemed that every other local news article was touting the hidden energy potential of all that dog poop we toss every year — to the tune of more than 6,500 tons in the San Francisco Bay Area alone.
Yet, more than two and a half years later, trash cans at busy dog parks are still overflowing with poop-filled plastic bags. What happened to our city's promise that brown is the new green (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/pets/detail?blogid=48&entry_id=26231)?
Well, now it seems that a group of entrepreneurial pooch lovers from Ithaca, New York (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/09/18/national/a000051D44.DTL&type=pets) may have beaten us to the big poo punch. The Tompkins County Dog Owners Group and Cayuga Compost have devised a "can-do plan" to profitably compost the dog doo its city's approximately 50,000 canines leave behind. More on this later...
First, here's the quick skinny on our own city's poop situation to date:
In 2006, Norcal Waste Systems proposed a grand poo-converting plan for the City that included placing biodegradable bags and dog-waste carts in San Francisco's high-traffic Duboce Park. The poop would be loaded it all into a methane digester, where bacteria could leisurely chow down on the poo for about two weeks to create methane. The methane would then be piped directly to a gas stove, heater, turbine or anything else powered by natural gas. This creative approach to dealing with animal feces was to aid San Francisco in meeting it's goal of halting its reliance on landfills by 2020 — plus, experts say that a year's worth of recycled pet poop from a city park has the potential to yield as much as 50 gallons of fuel! (Overall, animal feces comprises nearly 4 percent of San Francisco's residential waste — nearly as much as disposable diapers.) But, at least for the time being, the City has decided to focus its resources on other recycling-related priorities.
See rest of article at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/pets/detail?entry_id=48147

[6dogmom]

That is sooo weird.
Yesterday I went to tractor supply store to buy dog food, on the way out I saw a composter for clearance price. I went home and called my neighbor and was asking her if I could do it with the dog poo. She said she didn't know. I just thought that some thing so natural, we put it in a plastic bag that could take years to decompose. Huh.
I am not the greenest person but I do have thoughts on it. Some things really bother me and that is one of them. Especially when you own as many as I do. There has to be a better way.