This appeared this week on one of Newton’s ever-growing number of village list serves. Bold added for emphasis.
As you may have noticed, the city recently removed the blue trash and green recycling receptacles from all public areas and replaced them with a much smaller number of high-tech trash/recycling units. As a result of this change many public areas are now intentionally without any waste/recycling receptacles. The purpose of this is to save money by reducing staff time spent driving around emptying waste receptacles and to encourage residents to take waste home with them for disposal. It became apparent that public spaces that were used by residents walking their dogs needed to have containers for dog waste if the city expected owners to continue picking up after their dogs. The city has decided that 25-30 areas heavily used by residents walking dogs will have special waste receptacles for dog waste. These containers are not intended for residents to bring pet waste from home. Waste from these receptacles will be disposed of the same as regular trash, so pet waste generated at home or on walks from your home should continue to be disposed of with your regular trash.
There are no pets in my household so this is news to me. Is this really something people do?
UPDATE: Locations of the dog waste bins here.
‘containers are not intended for residents to bring pet waste from home’? Then why do they put one outside cityhall?? Are there that many dogs at the Hall? Don’t think so.. http://www.edmandspark.org/latest-news/
No one lives at City Hall either. But I suspect people walk their dogs there.
I want to give you all the straight poop. Actually, doggie dooley should be disposed of either in the pet waste barrels or in a toilet, NOT in your trash (or your neighbor’s trash, for that matter.) The City’s “pooper scooper” law provides:
My trash and recycling usually get picked up shortly after 7AM (because I live on a main road, not because I am a city councilor), so I bring in the barrels right away so that discourteous dog walkers do not make a deposit which will stink up the barrel for a week. Many of my neighbors are not so lucky, so they often come home to a barrel full of droppings made by other people’s dogs. In addition, some of the more creative folks will leave bags of poo hanging on the branches of the shrubs on our front lawn. Not very neighborly.
I don’t expect that the new pet waste barrels will stop people from disposing of their canine caca in their own trash (although dumping it in your trash barrel is a bad idea for reasons which should become obvious on the next hot, humid day in July or August), but I do hope it will encourage everyone to clean up after Bowser does his/her business on his/her walks.
So please DO clean up your dog’s excrement and DO drop it in the designated pet waste barrels. The city has hired a contractor that specializes in pet waste removal to empty the barrels. Please DO NOT use the Big Belly trash or recycling barrels to dispose of Fido’s feces. That’s just . . . gross.
Greg, I posted the list and map of locations on the West Newton neighborhood google list. Can you post links to the list and map on Village 14?
And Harry Sanders, we do have at least one City Hall employee who uses a service dog, so, yes, there are dogs at City Hall.
Wow. You lean something new ever day. I guess I’m all set now and can skip watching the convention tonight.
Then again, I bet most dog owners don’t know that they’re supposed to scoop the poop, bag it, bring it home and then unwrap it and flush it down their toilet.
Or if they do know, that not what they, um, doo.
Dog owners tell me otherwise?
and here’s the map and list Councilor Hess-Mahan is referring to.
I would never bring dog waste from my house to dispose of in a city receptacle, and I can’t imagine why anyone would. However, I definitely have mapped out dog walking routes to take me past city waste barrels. I’ve owned a dog for 3 1/2 years and this is the first I’ve heard that I’m supposed to flush! My bad.
@Gail: Will you start flushing now?
And Marti brings up a good point (which reminded me of this video Andrea once posted): How could it possibly be a good idea for our plumbing and sewer system to flush cat litter-encrusted cat poop? And are cat owners expected to sort their cat litter much like we separate our recycling?
Highly unlikely.
Thanks for posting the map and list.
I think the canine waste ordinance was first adopted when “pooper scoopers” first came along. Emptying the waste into a toilet would be preferable to dumping them directly in a trash can (I just cannot help the scat-ological references). But I assume most people who use plastic bags (don’t get me started) throw them in with the rest of the trash.
It says in the announcement at the top of the thread that the new 25-30 pet waste receptacles “will be disposed of the same as regular waste.” If that is true then the city is poo-pooing its own pooper scooper law. And really, does anyone actually put the doo they bring home in their pooper? How about their kitty litter doodie?
While we’re on the subject, can someone please explain why some people pick up their dog waste in a plastic bag, and then throw the bag in the bushes?
Why not leave it on the ground where nature will degrade it in a few days?
Thanks Ted and Greg for the hilarious comments. I don’t own dogs anymore and find life with dogs is far more complicated now than before. What the heck happened?
The comment above was from a citizen. Here is the announcement from the city:
If you look at the map, the 24 pet waste containers are located where there are off leash dog parks (e.g. Cold Spring Park) and conversation areas (e.g. Dolan Pond). When the trash barrels were removed and replaced with fewer “Big Belly barrels around the city, complaints regarding pet waste left at various locations where people like to walk their dogs increased.
I don’t own a dog, but I used to dog sit from time to time. It never occurred to me not to bring something to clean up after the dog and to bring it home and dispose of it with my trash (yes, I am a scofflaw). We dispose of the cat litter the same way, by bagging it and putting it in the trash. We have a covered bin for pet waste at home and, with the help of room fresheners, the smell is tolerable.
The problem with disposing of pet waste in the new Big Belly trash compactors is that they are emptied less frequently, and the smell of pet waste can be staggering. Putting poop in the recycling compactors is just wrong on every level. The trash and recycling compactors in village centers are near stores and restaurants, so have a heart and don’t dump pet waste in the trash or recycling compactors bring your pet waste home with you. It may be you sitting at a sidewalk cafe someday suffering from the smell.
@Councilor Hess-Mahan: Before you and your esteemed colleagues add new hard to enforce regulations to our city ordinances — like oh say, a leaf blower ban — perhaps we should focus on removing requirements virtually no one is following or enforcing, such as the flush your pet’s poop rules.
@Greg: Kitty litter flushed down the toilet will end up in a landfill. It can’t be processed or digested away. Just saying.
@Andrea: So are you saying it is a good or bad idea to flush kitty litter as our ordinance apparently requires cat owners to do (even though we know most –perhaps no one — does)?
@mark. Agree 100%. I regularly jog on Comm Ave and never fail to see at least 2-3 bags of dog poop left on the side of the road. Just plain arrogance.
@Greg, this is getting just a bit silly. The ordinance does say canine wastes. (FWIW, we flush all of our piscine pet wastes)
@Adam: My bad. I either skimmed the ordinance too quickly or was lead astray by a comment here or on a list serve. Consider my kitty litter comments scooped up and disposed.
@Ann, Mark, I see a much bigger problem on city sidewalks than in the parks. There’s a simple solution to this problem. Leaving it preserved in bags will only make enforcement easier.
@Greg: If you really want to know, I can ask the operators of the “#1 plant in the #2 business.”
This poop scooping company also claims to be #1 in #2.
I suspect that the proportion of dog owners that flush their dog’s poop is as small as the proportion of parents that flush their child’s diaper contents before discarding the diaper in the trash. Which is also the “proper” method of disposal but apparently does not warrant a city ordinance. And why does the city only require this for dogs? Should be at least as easy for cats – how is picking it out of the cat litter so different from picking up after your dog?
Thanks for posting the list of pet waste barrels. I was surprised to see that so few villages have them, but then realized that at least two locations listed under Newton Centre are actually in Highlands (near Cold Spring Park).
Like others, I am dismayed by seeing bags filled with dog poop left along paths and sidewalks almost every day. I would love for someone to come here, even anonymously, and explain their thought process whereby they recognize that they should pick it up and bag it so someone else doesn’t step in it (thanks!) but can’t be bothered with carrying the bag home. And they usually take the time to tie the bag closed as well.
Dog poop as a resource: http://parksparkproject.com
Alternative ideas? http://patch.com/massachusetts/charlestown/piles-of-processed-pooch-poop-on-public-paths
@Nathan: LOVE IT!!
Bruce, I don’t know the answer to your question, which is a good one.
When we first moved to Newton with out three small children, one of my neighbors had a habit of leading her dog up onto my front lawn and letting it do its business on the lawn. On top of that, when I confronted her, she not only refused to pick it up, she came back again the next day and did the same thing. So, I followed her home and told her my kids play on our lawn and asked how she would like it if I came to her house and let them, well, you know, do their business on her lawn. I never saw her again and we rarely found dog poop on our front lawn again (although we still find it on the berm between the sidewalk and the street). But I was simply amazed at the temerity of someone who would be so inconsiderate.
I do like the excrement to energy idea for pet waste in the parks. Some state parks have composting toilets and, of course, the carton of gigantic “eggs” on Deer Island in Boston Harbor are creating energy from effluent. Maybe Amy and I can look into that.
Nathan, we have been in touch with Matt Mazotta, his parkspark digester sits in storage in Maine, and is available if we wanted to use it. But Matt was able to study what not to do in future builds. –
–We are exploring a methane digester to be sited at the middle entrance on Blake opposite Adam London’s home (Barbara Spivak) http://www.apromisetoadam.org/ We are thinking the methane gas might possibly illuminate a memorial remembrance light. The methane digester http://parksparkproject.com/home.html could potentially be designed and constructed within the NNHS greengineering dept.>> from Edmandspark.org
@Bruce Blakely, I know of individuals who have seen dog owners drop their bags on the side of the road, pick up the bag and hand it back to the dog owner. It is sad when a member of the community will be so inconsiderate to leave any trash but I think it can even be worse when dog owners try to hide the bag by stuffing it down the storm drains. In my neighborhood the storm drains empty into Crystal Lake and the outflows are in areas of untested water prone to “unregulated” swimming.
Groot, I had to report a neighbor who dumped motor oil down the storm drain. I told him that it drained into the Cove and he said he didn’t care because he wouldn’t let his kids swim there anyway because the water is dirty. So I do not doubt that is exactly what might happen in your neighborhood.
Dog owners have a fundamental responsibility to feed and take care of their pets, and when their dogs inevitably do what they do when they have been fed, dog owners have a responsibility to dispose of the waste in an appropriate place, which brings use back to the ordinance. Because, despite the photo I linked to, dogs are not going to do it themselves.
Just previewed the new ‘poop pots’, already see potential problems. The heavy gauge outer staking mesh holds the heavy plastic inner bucket which then holds the replaceable plastic bag. All this is capped by a removable unsecured flip-in lid. This lid being unsecured, will in many locations result in not remaining on the ‘poop pot’. Since most of the locations, are not monitored esp at nite (city ordinance prohibits people from being in the park after dark), the non-conforming individuals here in Newton will easily remove the lid. I hear flies and maggots can be medicinal. Newton meets nature once again.
A couple of comments from a dog owner:
1. On a few occasions, I have bagged my dog’s waste and left it at the side of a trail to retrieve on my return trip some 30-60 minutes later, which I always make a point of doing. I actually don’t think I’ve done this is Newton because I don’t tend to walk out-and-back routes in Newton. Cutler Park in Needham is a perfect example though. After we walk miles out on the trail, I retrieve the bag and deposit it in the waste container designated specifically for that purpose.
This doesn’t answer the question of why anyone would just toss a bag to the side and abandon it, but I hope that sometimes those dog owners intend to pick it up on the trip home.
2. I’m relatively new to this dog-owning thing and I’m always learning things from others. This past winter, I was at Bobby Braceland (off-leash) Park with my dog and there was a woman who had grabbed a handful of poop bags that are available at the park. While her dog played, she was walking around picking up all the dog waste she saw. I joined her. I commented that I couldn’t believe other dog owners would just leave all that waste, and she pointed out that it was probably because snow had just melted (sometimes, as hard as you look, it’s not always easy to find your dog’s “deposits” in the snow when they’re off-leash). I was so struck by her willingness to clean up and her unwillingness to be judgmental about other dog owners’ behavior that I’ve continued to clean up after other dogs whenever I’m out with my dog. I’m not the perfect dog owner, but I figure this is one thing I can do (since I don’t plan on flushing!) and I can try and get other dog owners to follow suit.
Gail, first of all, congratulations on becoming a dog owner. I wish we could have one but my family outvoted me. (I am convinced the cat hypnotized them or used Jedi mind tricks on them.)
My experience with most dog owners and dog walkers, particularly at the off leash areas, is that they are highly conscientious (except for that one neighbor of mine). When the Board of Aldermen first began working on creating an off leash dog park ordinance, I visited many of the “unofficial” off leash dog parks with advocates, who would bring extra bags with them to pick up after others. When I visited Brookline’s off leash dog park with their director of Parks & Recreation, he told me that the off leash dog walkers were better at policing the park. When we first began working on creating an off leash dog park ordinance, I visited many of the “unofficial” off leash dog parks with advocates, who would bring extra bags with them to pick up after others. When I visited Brookline’s off leash dog park with the director of Parks & Recreation, he told me that the off leash dog walkers were better at policing the park than the average dog owner, because they appreciated the importance of keeping the parks clean for everyone and were concerned they would lose the privilege of having off leash areas if they did not keep them clean all the time.
I think the problem is that some people just don’t give a . . . damn.
Slightly off-topic, but related to Bruce Blakely’s comment regarding parent’s flushing of diaper contents: I take care of the garden at the Hyde Center and the trash cans there are full of dog waste and disposable diapers. Especially on days like today, the stench is unbelievable. I couldn’t believe that dumping a full diaper in a trash can was legal, but according to Dori Zaleznic (former Health Commissioner) it is.
A ‘poop pot’ has been installed at Lowell OLA. The replaceable plastic bag has not yet been installed but poop and trash is already within; has poop picker process not yet begun?? What is the city’s backup plan if these easily removed lids overfill with poop and trash? Once again the city is attempting to change human behavior. Remember citizens have grown accustomed to entitlement mentality of trash removal. This activity should be an internal function of DPW, not an outside contractor based where?
I have more than one dog and a small yard they use to do their business. We pick up frequently, but the volume of their output makes the flush option less than workable (drop, flush, wait and hold on to container of dog poo, repeat), especially when when it’s been snowed on or was frozen to the ground. I’m not sure that our home’s plumbing is up to it, either. Nor the muni system, considering some of the things these dorky dogs manage to eat.
We use biodegradable plastc bags to pick up, and paper grocery bags (Whole Foods superior to Shaw’s superior to Stop n Shop) for disposal. So far, the best option we’ve found is to put it in tbe trash can for removal.
Incineration of animal waste would be a better option. Too bad we can’t put that out curbside, like refuse and recycleables.
I do live quite near a park on the puppy poo map. I won’t be sneaking over with my wheelbarrow to use the new bins, however; we’ll continue to use trash over toilet for now.
I shared this post with some fellow dog owners who found this conversation interesting an amusing. First off regarding the regulation which indicates that we should be flushing the poop this seems highly unsanitary to me for a multitude of reasons of where I see this process could do wrong. When placing my dog’s poop in curbside trash barrels I only place it in my own bin. Typically it is bagged in a poop bag and then thrown into a trash bag. I find it discourteous when people decide to place their poop in others trash bins. I carry my poop until I find a place to dispose of it properly. From what I understand those leaving the poop bags in trees intend to pick them up when they depart the trail they are walking on. I believe the choice of hanging them higher in a tree rather than on the ground is to provide them with the visual reminder so they don’t forget to grab the bag on their way out. The mention that people are picking up their poop and placing it in storm bins is ridiculous. A person is not going to care enough to pick up their poop and then dispose of it in a manner that is not appropriate like that. You are more likely to see someone not pick up poop if they don’t care. If you are seeing bacteria in the lake it is from the geese poop. I had a dog and know many dogs who have gotten very sick from eating geese poop.
All that said I think a huge problem is created by not having proper trash receptacles available where people need them. The nature of most people is that they will throw trash away if there is a receptacle available but if there is not some people will just make do. That is why I see fault with the idea of these new poop only receptacles. They placed one in the Newton Center dog park which is fine except there is no other trash barrel for regular trash anywhere visible from that area. There are large groups who play volley ball there. From what I understand last weekend they carried their trash out however other groups may not be so conscientious. I have picked up quite bit of trash over there in the last few years and it will only get worse if there is no trash bin nearby. Either people will just put the trash in the poop only bin or they will stack nearby. On a similar note I also wonder about the public recycling bins as it seems like a lot of stuff ends up in those bins that as a homeowner you would not put in the bins. Is there a special sort for those or how are they handled so that something that is recyclable is not tainted by other junk? Lastly as far as the big belly bins go those that are the library book return style (rather than the ones you just push through) get completely disgusting because of the stuff that gets spilled and stuck there.
‘Doesn’t matter what you tax them, as long as they have their trash picked up’
… Ted Mann
‘I always believe that to be the best, you have to smell like the best, dress like the best, act like the best. When you throw your trash in the garbage can, it has to be better than anybody else who ever threw trash in the garbage can.’
…Lil Wayne
“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” –Groucho Marx
Ted’s quote wins!
Yesterday, on a walk on Comm Ave between Morton St. and Chestnut St., I counted 4 bags of dog poop lying on the ground on the side of the carriage lane. No dog walkers in sight, so I assume that no one would be returning to pick them up. This is littering, plain and simple.
Yes, I see this all the time. newtonhighlandsmom’s statement that “A person is not going to care enough to pick up their poop and then dispose of it in a manner that is not appropriate like that” is just not supported by the facts. I think there are 3 groups of dog people: the Obnoxious-Never-Picker-Uppers, who just don’t care where they leave it or who’s watching; the Conscientious-Always-Picker-Uppers, who always pick up and carry out because it’s the right thing to do, whether anyone else is around or not; and the Depends-On-Who’s-Watching folks who pick up when there are other people around, but who have no problem ditching the bag on the street, in a bush, or in someone else’s trash barrel as soon as they can because they don’t want to carry it around with them. I’ve walked a lot of dogs in my life, and picked up a lot of poop. I helped out a dog-walker for a few months, walking up to 5 dogs at a time off leash on trails, and I always brought a bigger plastic bag so I could pick-up and carry all the poop bags generated along the way so nothing would be accidentally left behind. The whole “leave it and I’ll get it on the way out” thing drives me nuts.
“The true test of a [person]’s character is what [she] does when no one is watching.”
― John Wooden