Pet Carbon Footprints

[Catherine]

I suspect the article is thinking more about city pets. They can have a real impact on the environment even if they don't go outside. The waste still has to be disposed of. 

Those were good articles about composting dog and cat waste. I never thought of the danger of using cat and dog poop in a composter.

We have a city green bin program. Anything organic can be composted by the city. You just put it out once a week in a big green bin and the city will collect it. I don't know how they do this, but they do take pet waste. We get it back next year as rich fertilizer. It is dropped off in the spring in parks and parking lots of schools. You can take home as much as you want for free. My city councillor was there with a shovel filling peoples bins. It is good stuff and free!

Snake poop is nasty. It is mixed with wood shavings and I toss it in the green bin. I am sure it makes rich compost, but not in my back yard. The smell would be unreal. We stopped having back yard composters because of the rat problem. Big cities have brown rats by the thousands. I see them in the subway sometimes.

You are right about the poop and scoop bags they use for dogs. They seem to live forever on the sidewalks. People will pick up after the dog, but then they don't dispose of the bag with the poop in it. Those are the bags that need to be biodegradable.

Dig I tell you that I use biodegradable bags for snake poop.