Poop bags.

Poop bags.

If you live in the city with a dog you know where I am coming from. If you have ever seen someone in an urban environment walking a dog a dog, you pray they have one. It is the law to remove dog waste from city areas. Some places, where I used to live in Brookline, you could not even walk you dog in front of certain buildings incase your dog peed on their pristine piece of grass. I don’t know if it is because I got Japser, (my dog), when I lived in Utah, and lived in the country with him for 4 years, or what, but he will ONLY go the bathroom on grass.

As I am trying to reduce my packaging and change my consumption behavior I look to my dog. Every day we use 2 plastic bags. I used to buy those little blue bags that people attach to their dog’s leashes. Then, even before this project I would ask my roommates, and co-workers to save their plastic bags from the grocery store and give them to me. So I saved some money on not buying these little blue poop bags. They were expensive, around $10 at petco, just to pick up dog poop.

Then, we moved to Nantucket for the summer. Nantucket has a law where stores can not use plastic bags. Everything comes in a paper bag. Which is fine for me, I came prepared for the summer bringing 2 re-usable bags from Trader Joe’s. Here came the problem. We lived on conservation land. If the people in Brookline got mad at dogs peeing on their little green spots outside of their buildings, you can only imagine how the people of Nantucket would act. I wish I had come prepared to the island but I had to buy a $40 “pooper scooper”. Really $40? Well it’s Nantucket, and it said ACK dog on the handle. Shoppers down there are suckers. But because of where I lived, (the Umass Boston field station), we were lucky enough to have the garbage colleted. Most people brought it to the dump, which was on the other side of the island. They are very strict in Nantucket. My friend who also went down there and worked at the Yacht Club was fined $100 for throwing that weird little piece of plastic that comes from when you open a new bottle of milk, she threw that in the garbage instead of the recycling. Big mistake. So I would have to scoop the poop into paper bags and then dispose of it in the big clear plastic bag.

Now after working on this UEL project I have looked at the poop bags to see where I could cut back. I am pleased to say that I try to get the dog to poop in the yard and pick it up with a shovel and put it in the big trash, but I have been saving “non-traditional” bags. Now on our walks I may use a bag from an old loaf of bread, or the 3 pack of romaine lettuce. We were actually stopped last night on a walk down by Jamaica Pond by a woman who said it was great that I was re-using bags, and was going to start using her old bread bags. Win-Win.