INC NEWS - Fw: [whhna-list] Dog poop/Waste collection rules

[Mike - Hotmail]

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mike


 ----- Original Message ----- 
 From: "Diane McKay" <nczephdog at yahoo.com>
 To: <whhna-list at rtpnet.org>
 Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2005 8:49 AM
 Subject: [whhna-list] Dog poop/Waste collection
 rules


 Here's the scoop (groan) from the City of Durham re: dog waste collection. 
I spoke to a representative this morning:

Dog waste should be double-bagged if it is to be collected curbside, for 
these reasons:

If a small bag of doo falls out of the cart while the cart is being emptied 
into the truck, the agents will flip the little bag back into the cart and 
"green tag"
the cart.  These green tags outline the protocol that has been violated--in 
this case, "loose" garbage "improperly bagged."  I'm sure I'm not the only
one who has come home from work at the end of the collection day to find 
such a tag on my cart (and no, I do not leave my cart at the curb for days 
at a
time to serve as an invitation for public dumping).

This has happened to me on two occasions since I moved here in mid-June, 
which is why I posted my objections in the first place:  I wound up fishing 
the rank
little bags out of the bottom of the cart and placing them into a sealed 
kitchen bag so that they would be collected the following week.

Here's another interesting tidbit from the city of Durham:  animal waste is 
considered hazardous waste. It emits a high amount of fumes.  Sometimes, 
when
a truck returns to the transfer station, if its load is "too fumy," it 
triggers an alarm, and work must stop while the fumes are cleared. 
Double-bagging dog
poo means that the fumes are lessened, which means that the workers can 
perform their jobs more efficiently (I also would imagine that they are 
grateful for
anything we can do to make the jobs more pleasant).

After the representative told me this, I was reminded that my friends at the 
Scrap Exchange plow through several tons of garbage every day looking for
reusable materials.  I wonder if double-bagging means less contamination of 
these materials.

So:  double-bagging is not only courteous to those neighbors who do not 
appreciate the little gifts left behind in their carts (any ideas about how 
to
identify them that do and them that don't??), it is courteous to workers who 
have to endure tough working conditions as it is.  It means work gets done 
more
efficiently, too.

If you have environmental objections to double-bagging, perhaps you would be 
interested in these products:

 http://www.ecoproducts.com/Home/home_biobags/home_index_biobags.htm
 Diane