26 March 2017

Is it OK to put dog poop in a neighbor's garbage can?

There are some dilemmas of modern life that our grandparents could never have imagined.  In various locations around this country there is an ongoing public debate about the disposal of dog poop.  Everyone agrees that the dog's owner should pick it up - but there is disagreement about the proper disposal.

The dog's owner is out for a walk.  The dog poops four blocks from home.  The owner bags the poop.  It's garbage pick-up day and the containers are at curbside.  Does he/she place the bagged poop in a nearby container, or carry it all the way home?
According to Minneapolis ordinances, you can’t put “substances or materials of any kind” in a residential garbage can “when the substances or materials were generated at a location other than the residence.”

In St. Paul, ordinances say when a dog poops on someone else’s property, the dog owner has to remove the poop “to a proper receptacle located on property owned or possessed” by the dog owner.
Discussion and various proposed solutions (including stickers to put on garbage cans) at the StarTribune.

5 comments:

  1. When I was young, I don't ever remember picking up dog poop while on a walk. My most recent dog though I picked up everything in her 14 year life and I made sure that it went in our garbage can because even with bags our garbage can smelled horribly. I couldn't subject someone else's can to that.

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  2. it is a similar situation with anyone throwing anything in someone else's trash. so many communities have segregated trash containers (real trash, recyclables, bio stuff, etc.). the owner of those containers is responsible for what goes in them, and will get cited by the sanitation 'police' if the wrong items are in the wrong containers, regardless of who put them there - the owner, or, a passerby.

    I-)

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  3. I would much rather have someone put their dog's poop in my trash can than leave it on my lawn.

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  4. As a dog owner, I can't imagine doing such a thing to the neighbors. Bags can get torn open or untied, leaving a mess inside the can. We also have javelina packs that roam our neighborhood the night before garbage day, happy to knock over cans for edibles, leaving trash strewn around on the streets. I'd hate to add to someone's mess.

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  5. We saw a dog poop in our yard. The owner was carrying a small shovel, and he scooped up the poop and threw it in our garden! My wife confronted him a few days later, and he went off on a Libertarian rant. He stopped, though.

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