Published: Tuesday, 25th March, 2008 12:00
Could Dog Poo help us go green?
By The Largs No Poo on My Shoe group
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Dog Poo Power - Could Dog Poo Help Us Go Green?
The problem of dog poo is one that seems to affect everyone everywhere. Approximately 1,000 tonnes of faeces are produced by dogs in the UK every day. This is all too often left to decompose on in landfill sites, or even worse, on our streets, contaminating the environment where we live.
This problem is by no means unique to the UK. Take San Francisco. As a dog loving city pet faeces currently make up nearly 4% of its residential waste. That is 6,500 tonnes of dog poop every year. Yuk!
A rather unusual solution has been found to this city's problem however. It seems that San Francisco's canine buddies may actually help it to become more eco-friendly by providing poo to help power the city's homes.
Since January 2006 San Francisco's waste management contractor, Norcal Waste, have been collecting dog faeces throughout the city and now has dog-waste collection carts with biodegradeable bags set up in Duboce Park, one of the city;s most popular dog parks. The dog faeces will be used as a renewable energy source through the production and combustion of methane gas.
The poo-to-energy scheme works like this. The pet poop is first put into an anaerobic digester, which uses bacteria to convert organic waste into methane gas. Burning that gas produces energy in the form of electricity, natural gas, and liquefied natural gas. This gas is then captured and used to power equipment that normally runs on natural gas, such as a kitchen stove or a heater. The two week long digestion process also produces valuable compost for agriculture.
This very clever initiative will enable the city to reach it’s goal of diverting 75% of its waste from landfills by 2010, as well as providing a clean new energy source!
I wonder if this dog poo motion will spread to the UK.
Dog Poo Cement
Did you read about San Francisco's groundbreaking solution to dog poo pollution? Here's another innovative idea to solve the problem of dog fouling.
A German architect, Friedrich Lentze, 57, from Berlin, has filed an application for a new type of cement made of dog poo. This ‘odourless heating and building material’ will be made from the poo cleaned from the streets of the German capital every day.
Friedrich said ‘ They thought I was joking at first, but it makes economic sense as the stuff has to be collected anyway, so why not use it for something useful. The loads of dog poo that are gathered every day actually make a great mortar with fantastic insulating properties.’
Dung has been used for centuries as a building material. It will now be combined with modern materials to provide a new type of insulating cement.
The German patent office confirmed it had received the application but declined to comment on whether it had been approved.
I wonder if the someone in the UK will come up with an idea to top that?
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