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Dog Poop Digester Could Be Clean Solution for all That Mess

By Nicole Levy | August 25, 2015 7:41am
 The city parks department is considering a program that would convert dog poop at park dog runs into clean energy.
The city parks department is considering a program that would convert dog poop at park dog runs into clean energy.
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DNAinfo/ Emily Frost

When New Yorkers adopt a dog, they rarely consider the byproduct of all that unconditional canine love — the city's roughly 600,000-hound population generate more than 100,000 tons of poop a year.

Some of it gunks up the soles of unlucky pedestrians' shoes (most frequently in the Bronx, according to this map). But most of it is disposed in garbage cans and shipped to landfills, costing the city more than $100 per ton.

That's a waste of resources, says Ron Gonen, the city's former deputy commissioner of sanitation, recycling and sustainability.

Now the CEO of an investment fund supporting recycling initiatives, Gonen has proposed a program that would convert poop at city dog parks into clean energy, the Economist reports.

"Sparky Power" would outfit parks with small anaerobic digesters, sealed devices containing bacteria that breaks down biodegradable materials and transforms waste into gas in the absence of oxygen. Dog owners would drop their pets' poop into the machines, which would provide the energy to power lamps and other park equipment.

The city parks department is currently considering a yearlong pilot that would install digesters in three city parks at the cost of $100,000.

A similar plan introduced at an Arizona dog park, involving a device that its creators called E-TURD, ultimately proved unsuccessful in 2012.