Well, he’s definitely creative when it comes to the fight.
A Meath councillor has called for dog poo-powered street lights to be installed on public paths in Trim.
According to the Irish Examiner, Fine Gael Councillor Noel French raised the possible measure as a way of clamping down on dog fouling in public areas after he requested the Council provide figures on the number of fines issued during 2017.
According to the Council, only 12 dog poo-related fines had been issued by Meath County Council over the past five years.
“Dog walkers are provided with free compostable bags and encouraged to deposit the dog poo into a hatch leading to an anaerobic digester beside the lamp”, French suggested to the council.
Pointing to the success of a similar model in English West Midlands county of Worcestershire, he continued:
“Ten bags of poo is sufficient to provide two hours of light from dusk. Dog owners are encouraged to turn a handle five times which helps break down the contents of the digester to produce methane to fuel the lamp.
“I’m running out of ideas to try and press the council to issue more fines”, the councillor said. “In 2015, I called for the poo to be sprayed a bright colour which has been done by Corby Council in England. I also called for a DNA database on dog licences to be used to trace the owners and, like a town in Spain, post the poo back to them as lost property.”
He has additionally called for mobile CCTV, the use of drones to catch owners and audio warnings, the latter two having been adopted in Navan.
“We have to make it socially unacceptable to allow your dog to foul a public area. I’ve been approached so many times by people who are wheelchair users and those who are visually impaired who are tainted by it time and time again. It’s horrific when a visually impaired person can’t see the poo until it’s too late and it’s on their shoes or stick, which often the hands of wheelchair users are covered in poo after they wheel their chair through it.”
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