I’m betting you already know about death and taxes, but not so much about dog poop! Well, here’s a real eye opener for you. According to the Association of Animal Waste Specialists:
this country’s seventy-one million pet dogs produce over 4.4 billion pounds of waste per year. That’s enough to cover 900 football fields with 12 inches of dog waste! Dog feces are more than just a nuisance – pet waste can pose a serious health hazard.
Children run the greatest risk of infection because they’re prone to play in the dirt at the park or playground and then put their hands in their mouths or rub their eyes with their hands.
In addition to health risks associated with dog waste, you need to be concerned with the manner by which the waste is recovered. If you among the many millions who walk their dogs and carry a PLASTIC BAG for disposal after the walk you are making a serious environmental mistake. Take heart, initially I wasn’t aware of this mistake either.
The problem with using plastic bags for animal waste is that once thrown away, they most often end up in landfills. We now know that plastic lasts forever unless it has been recycled! The Daily Green puts it this way:
Unfortunately, if you put Lassie’s waste in a plastic bag, it takes up to 100 years to decompose. Flushing it down the toilet is inconvenient, and can potentially cause problems in sewer systems because of its high amount of grit.
