by Jennifer Lefebvre

For so many of us, our pets are a part of our family.  We feed them, pamper them, and treat them very well.  And, if you are a responsible pet owner, on your daily walks, you make sure to clean up after Fido’s bathroom breaks; maybe even being green by using your old grocery bags to scoop it up.  But have any of us ever stopped to think about the impact that particular bag of poop has on the environment? 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture  estimates that the average dog generates approximately 275 pounds of waste per year.  According to The Humane Society of the United States, there are more than 77 million dog owners in the United States, and almost 94 million cat owners.  That is a lot of pet waste.  If left outside, bacteria and viruses from this waste can be washed into our waterways; but picking it up using bags that do not biodegrade does not help much.  Authors of the book, Time to Eat the Dog?, Brenda and Robert Vale, state “If you have a German shepherd or similar-sized dog, its impact every year is exactly the same as driving a large car around.”  Their research found that a “dog’s carbon pawprint was twice that of a Toyota Land Cruiser being driven 6,213 miles a year. A cat’s eco pawprint was ‘slightly less than a Volkswagen Golf,’ and keeping two hamsters is the same as owning a plasma TV.” Read the rest of this entry »