Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => The Environment => Topic started by: tackem on 21/12/2020 20:42:56
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If everyone disposed of dog poo down a street drain would this cause problems at the sewerage works? Would this be better for the environment than disposing of it in plastic bagged household waste.?
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If everyone disposed of dog poo down a street drain would this cause problems at the sewerage works? Would this be better for the environment than disposing of it in plastic bagged household waste.?
I'm not a dog-owner. But couldn't you scoop your dog's droppings into a bio-degradable paper bag, bring the bag home, and flush it down your WC.
How do "street drains" come into it?
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a street drain ... sewerage works
Street drains are for collecting rainwater, and normally flow into creeks, rivers and the oceans. They do not go to a sewage treatment plant.
Sewage systems are for treating sewage so that it does not cause contamination of creeks, rivers and oceans.
In some cases, people have confused these two networks, and fed rainwater into the sewage system. So when you get heavy rain, the volume of sewage increases significantly; it can't be held within the sewage plant, and it overflows into rivers or the sea.
So, no, do not kick poo down the drain - bag it and put it into landfill, or put it into compost or the sewage system (without a plastic bag!).
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There are two types of drainage system in use (here in the UK at least), combined and separate. In the latter there are two separate pipes running down the street, one is the foul sewer to carry waste from bath, sink, toilet etc., and the other is the storm drain which carries rainwater runoff from the streets. In a combined system these both share the same pipe.
Sewage and rainwater are clearly very different from the point of view of pollution potential, so they require very different treatment at the sewage works. Rainwater can be discharged into watercourses with relatively little processing compared with sewage, just a bit of filtering to remove debris, which means that there is a huge reduction in the amount of foul water for the main sewage works to handle. The disadvantage is that two pipes are more expensive to install than one.
A combined sewer with only one pipe saves installation cost, but means that the sewage works has to process huge additional quantities of rainwater that was already clean until it was needlessly contaminated by putting it down the same pipe as the sewage. The means that the sewage works has to be capable of handling sudden large surges during a storm, and may be forced to discharge untreated sewage into a river if a big storm overtops the capacity of the plant.
If your street in question has a very old combined sewer there may be little harm, but if it's a separate system, then whatever you throw down the storm drain will go into a river almost untreated, with consequences for the environment.
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Personally I pick up after my dogs using a biodegradable bag. However in my local council area we are instructed to dispose in the landfill bin, not the garden waste bin.
Numerous dog owners do not pick up, so I envisaged a new system of compulsory carriage of a small shovel (like the kids use at the beach) and shovelling the poo down the nearest drain.
Thanks for the answers which indicate a no to this solution.
Does anyone have any other suggestions as our local streets are a mess thanks to a few thoughtless owners.
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Personally I pick up after my dogs using a biodegradable bag. However in my local council area we are instructed to dispose in the landfill bin, not the garden waste bin.
Numerous dog owners do not pick up, so I envisaged a new system of compulsory carriage of a small shovel (like the kids use at the beach) and shovelling the poo down the nearest drain.
Thanks for the answers which indicate a no to this solution.
Does anyone have any other suggestions as our local streets are a mess thanks to a few thoughtless owners.
When you say, your local streets are a mess, aren't you perhaps overstating the contribution that dogs make to the the mess? Your remarks, if you don't mind my saying so, unfairly convey the impression that dog-poo is lying around all over the place.
I haven't found this to be the case. Very rarely do I encounter dog waste in the street. But every day I see human waste. Not as faecal deposits, true. But in the form of discarded paper and cardboard food-wrappings, smeared with bits of decaying food, drink cans and plastic bottles, cigarette-stubs, and blue anti-virus face-masks just dropped in the street. Without any care apparently. by their human owners. This attitude, on their part, astounds me.
Personally, I never drop even a sweet-wrapper in the street. That's because I am civilised, whereas some other people are barbarians.
Anyway, getting back to your question about dog-poo, I don't see any solution except:
1. Local councils providing "dog-toilets" situated every few streets;
2. Councils offering financial incentives for dog-owners to bag the poo, take it to an inspection- centre, and get paid £5 for each validated bag.
Both of these suggestions are not very realistic, are they?
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Are bird/ fox/ squirrel/ etc droppings significantly different from dogs'?
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Are bird/ fox/ squirrel/ etc droppings significantly different from dogs'?
A good question. Do you think it can be answered like this:
1. Fox and squirrel droppings are rarely encountered in our streets. Have you ever seen the droppings, and would you recognise them if you did. At any rate, they don't seem to present a major problem.
2. Regarding bird droppings - there you are onto something more significant. Birds in the form of pigeons, do demonstrably deposit huge amounts of avian excreta all over our towns and cities. Just look at what they do to our public buildings and statues. Continually besmirched with unsightly white coatings, requiring constant cleaning. And who hasn't been hit on the head by a pigeon "bomb"?
However, in the pigeon's favour - it doesn't eat meat, it is exclusively a grain-eater. Ie, a vegetarian. And the droppings of vegetarians are much less smelly and offensive than those of carnivores.
Consider for example the different attitude we display towards the droppings of vegetarian grass/hay/oat eating horses, and the droppings of carnivorous dogs.
The horses' droppings are lightly dismissed, and humorously tolerated, as "horse-apples". But who's ever had a good word to say about the canine product?
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Hello :) I just want to mention that in some places it is illegal to throw away pet waste in storm drains as it may cause major water pollution. Unlike drainage system in houses, it is not connected to wastewater treatment plants or septic
systems. :-[ Flushing it is still the environmentally friendly option in my opinion.