Technorati Tags: dog poop, environment-friendly

Pet
waste is not the predominant or most toxic pollutant in urban streams,
but it is one of many small sources of pollution that can cumulatively
have a big impact if left unmanaged. The New Jersey Department of Health
has estimated that there are over 500,000 dogs in the state.
Add to this figure cats and other smaller pets, and a significant volume
of waste is being generated daily.

Pet
waste contains bacteria and parasites, as well as organic matter and
nutrients, notably nitrogen and phosphorous.

Some
of the diseases that can be spread from pet waste are:

• Campylobacteriosis-
  a bacterial infection that causes diarrhea in humans.

• Salmonellosis-
  the most common bacterial infection transmitted to humans from animals.
  Symptoms include fever, muscle aches, headache, vomiting, and diarrhea.

• Toxocarisis-
  roundworms transmitted from animals to humans. Symptoms include
  vision loss, rash, fever, or cough.

In addition to these
diseases, the organic matter and nutrients contained in pet waste can
degrade water quality. When pet waste is washed into a surface water
body, the waste decays. This process of breaking down the organic matter
in the waste uses up dissolved oxygen and releases ammonia. Low oxygen
levels, increased ammonia and warm summer water temperatures can kill
fish.

Excess phosphorous
and nitrogen added to surface waters can lead to cloudy, green water
from accelerated algae and weed growth. Decay of this extra organic
matter can depress oxygen levels, killing organisms. Objectionable odors
can also occur.

Flies and other
pest insects can also increase when pet waste is disposed of improperly,
becoming a nuisance and adding another vector for disease transmission.

Managing pet waste
properly is something that everyone can do to make a difference in their
respective watersheds. Truly, proper individual actions result in significant
water quality improvement when carried out by the majority. Unlike some
forms of stormwater pollutants, pet waste can be easily and economically
managed by the individual.

Sometimes, the ‘out
of sight, out of mind’ attitude exists regarding pet waste. Employing
this flawed thinking, waste is often disposed of in the street stormwater
catch basin. Aside from dumping directly into a water body, this is
the single worst place to dispose of waste. In the next rainstorm,
the accumulated waste is transported quickly and efficiently to the
nearby receiving water course, polluting it. Water quality monitoring
studies in New Jersey have emphasized this specific problem. That said,
then, specifically what can be done?

Technorati Tags: dog waste

Flush it

Pet waste itself (not the litter or bedding material) can be flushed down the toilet. The water from the toilet goes either to a septic system onsite or a sewage treatment plant that removes most pollutants before the water reaches its outlet. The used litter should be disposed of in a securely closed bag in the trash.

Bury it

A good option is to install an underground pet waste digester in the yard (Doggie Dooley or equivalent  Before buying one, check with your local health official to ensure that it is permitted, and if there are site location restrictions.
You can also bury the waste directly in the yard. Dig a hole or trench that is 6 inches deep, away from vegetable gardens, play areas, and away from any lake, stream, or well. Often, the woods is an ideal spot. Microorganisms in the top layer of soil will break down and digest the waste, releasing the nutrients for uptake by adjacent vegetation.
Never add the waste as a fertilizer to the garden or to the compost pile. The disease organisms will continue to survive and create a significant health risk.

Trash it

Check local ordinances first. Putting pet waste in the trash is against the law in some communities. Even if legal and easy, it’s not the best solution. Waste can contribute to the landfill problems in the state.

Leave it to someone else

Believe it or not, a number of professional pet waste disposal services exist in New Jersey. These businesses will completely remove the waste from your yard and dispose of it themselves, for a fee.
If you leave the waste to decay in the yard, be sure it does not become a problem. To prevent water pollution, clean up areas near shallow wells, storm drains, ditches, and watercourses. Always remove pet waste from areas where children play….for obvious reasons, kids are the most frequent victims of diseases from feces.

Odinances, signage and education

Many communities have “pooper-scooper” laws that govern pet waste cleanup. Some of these laws specifically require anyone who walks an animal off of their property to carry a bag, shovel, or scooper. Any waste left by the animal must be cleaned up immediately. Call your local health officer to find out more about pet waste regulations.
In recreation areas, trails, and public parks, ‘scooper signage’ along with plastic bag dispensers and disposal cans should be provided. This idea is especially critical at streamside or lake shore walking trails.
Public education is critical when addressing the pet waste problem. Interestingly, much of the public thinks of problems associated with pet waste as being only nuisance related-odors or aesthetics. An actual example of this is the woman walking her dog in the park who had brought along a brown paper bag to collect the 150 pound mastiff’s waste. This she indeed dutifully did, and then proceeded to dispose of the bag by….tossing it into the lake!

Brochures, newsletters, signage, local public service announcements, and evening seminars are all ways to get the word out to the public. One very effective way to reach people is to have a flyer enclosed in tax bills or other municipally-generated mailings that go to all property owners.

Conclusion

The problem of pet waste disposal in suburbia is a real one. Research has indicated strongly that water quality is negatively impacted by this pollutant in New Jersey. However, unlike many other sources of water degradation in the state, improper pet waste management is a dilemma that can be easily corrected through education by organizations and common sense actions by individuals.

A solution of one part lemon juice and one part water can be made to spray on your dog before going outside. This is one of the best ways to keep fleas and ticks away. Be sure to keep lemon juice and vinegar away from your dog’s eyes.

It is best to always speak with your vet if you do choose any alternative methods of treatment. These simple prevention techniques can be used to not only keep your dog safe from pests but to, more importantly, keep them healthy while doing it.

Technorati Tags: dog flea repellent

It’s obvious why you should care about the degradability of plastic bags. But there’s a bigger question: why should you care about picking up your dog’s poop? After all, no one picks up poop in nature. Why not let nature take its course?

Quite simply: because the sidewalk is not nature. Pet waste left on sidewalks is a significant contributing factor to the spread of the following diseases, bacteria, and protozoa:

Tapeworm
“Poop rice,” as described by my veterinarian, is the single most common infection transmitted by discarded dog poop in the United States. An estimated 35% of the indoor animals that contract tapeworm are thought to get it from infected poop brought into the home on the shoes of humans who have stepped in it. Tapeworm is a parasite that needs fleas to fulfill its lifecycle, but poop is crucial to the process. Roundworm
One worm of this class, Toxocarisis, is transmitted to humans through infected animal poop. It can cause rash, fever, and a loss of vision.

Cryptosporidium
These protozoa cause diarrhea in dogs, cats, and humans. According to some health professionals, many of us may have had it without knowing it — it can go undetected two out of the three times it has been contracted. You might have just blamed Taco Bell.

Salmonellosis
This nasty little bacterium causes fever, vomiting, diarrhea (or, as we PoopReporters call it, “double doodie”), and headaches that leave both pets and people weak and sometimes unable to recover for months. Although most often associated with uncooked chicken, this bacterium can be brought into your home — with devastating results in the young and elderly — by, once again, simply walking through infected poop.

Giardia
This single-celled organism causes flatulence (yes, that’s a bad thing), diarrhea, and overall digestive disorder. It can live outside of the host for vast periods of time, which is why it easily and successfully spreads via infected poop.

E. Coli
This bacterium produces a toxin that injures the epithelial cells of our digestive tract, which can lead to severe bleeding and even permanent kidney damage.

Parvovirus
This small, single DNA-stranded virus is species-specific, not xenotransferable, but there are many types of it. In dogs, the virus capsule — which, unlike some viruses, is not composed of fat which means disinfectants can’t kill it as easily — affects quick-splitting cells like those of bone marrow, the lymph system, and the intestinal tract. Its initial symptoms include Rover vomiting and diarrhea-ing, which is why those symptoms should always be treated with medical attention, especially in puppies and adolescent dogs.

Well, that settled the argument for me. Infected poop spreads infections. But what about those of us who, like me, give our animals excellent health care? “My dog has none of those diseases,” I might say, “so why should I pick up his dook?” Because poop — even “quality” poop that may not infect humans and our pets with diseases — still causes trouble.

When you leave poop on the sidewalk, it’s eventually swept into the sewers — not the same sewers through which human poop travels, but the storm sewers, which often discharge directly into the waterways without any treatment. Thus poop degrades water quality, leading to cloudiness and an increase of algae. (If you have an aquarium, you know this to be true.) Pet poop has been considered responsible for almost one fourth of the fecal contamination of the waterways — those very same waterways from which you get your drinking water.

And then there are the flies. While they are completely indispensable in our ecosystem as garbage men (maggots recycle dead carcasses and poop), they refuse to confine themselves to the poop in your yard and on the sidewalk. They fly into your house and sit on your living surfaces. And they don’t wash their hands — so if you leave poop lying around, they’re going to touch it on the way to your kitchen. And here’s what they might bring with them:

Shigellosis
A variety of diseases, like dysentery, that cause diarrhea. Polio
Believe it. Poliomyelitis can be transmitted by a fly landing on your food. Susceptible people — like those who aren’t properly vaccinated — can and have contracted polio in this manner.

Eye Diseases
Trachoma and epidemic conjunctivitis (a.k.a pink eye) are transmitted by houseflies in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific regions of the world.

Diseases that are less commonly transmitted by houseflies include Salmonellosis, Cholera, Amoebic Dysentery, and parasitic worms such as pinworm, whipworm, hookworm, and tapeworm.

Flies won’t necessarily acquire those diseases from poop. But if they’re carrying those diseases, poop will enable those dangerous flies to thrive. What about poop as a natural fertilizer? Well, Yelm, Washington is full of farmers, and since most of them are friendly to a fault, I was able to pester them with this question in our town’s Safeway. All of them told me roughly the same thing. “Fertilizer manure needs to be from a plant eater, miss. Pig poop, dog poop, it doesn’t help our crops or the grass because it doesn’t have grass in it. The stuff in dog poop does not give back to our crops anything worth gettin’.” Well, that’s good enough for me.

(Editor’s note: pig poop and dog poop — and even human poop — CAN be used as fertilizer, but they need to be properly composted first [3].)

After learning all this about dog poop, I feel a bit better about having sacrificed a few non-biodegradable plastic bags in favor of keeping my neighborhood disease free—while Gator and Sadie have all of their shots and are parasite-free, their waste would otherwise definitely contribute to the fly population of our community. And now that even my plastic bags can be environmentally friendly, why, I have no excuse.

SOURCES
http://www.vbspca.com/library_poop.html [4]
http://www.outlawchinooks.com/Scoop_on_Poop.html [5]
http://www.aboutbugsbugsbugs.com/houseflies/health.htm [6]
http://www.marvistavet.com/html/what_is_parvo.html [7] Share and Enjoy:

Technorati Tags: apartment, dog poop

Source:

http://www.stormwatercenter.net/Pollution_Prevention_Factsheets/AnimalWasteCollection.htm

Technorati Tags: dog poop, dog waste