Saturday, March 6, 2010

Doggy poop in plastic

Dog poop and plastic bags.


During our early morning strolls, when the dog takes us for a walk, we used to cover the doggy poop with sand, whenever possible.

Lately we are joining the recommendation from the municipality and we are using the old bread plastic wrappers to collect the dog poop and then place it into a bin, (usually at the park).

Some people just toss their doggy-doodle-bag into the long grass to be exposed when the lawn is cut.




My concern is: "Are we adding to  carbon footprint by bagging the dog poop.
I have the following two reasons for saying this:
1.   Doggy-doodle-filled bags are not recyclable.
2.   Do we know the relationship between the organisms that decompose animal faeses in the wild, and the growth and distribution of fynbos?

In the early days our open spaces crawled with animal life.

Now that lawn mowing is commonplace, even in many of our reserves, we are drastically reducing the ability for animals to coexist on our open spaces.    The result of this is less animal faeces.
Whenever you remove one aspect of nature, you remove a whole life cycle of insects.    Do we fully understand the relationship of the insects that breaks down the animal faeces to the group of insects that helps with the fertilization and pollination of the plants in the wild?

Should there be a suggestion that if your doggy poop on open space, it is better to just leave it there and let nature do it's thing?

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