Are You Picking Up After Your Dog? Map Shows Neighborhoods With the Worst Offenders
Remember: Don’t blame the dog, blame its lazy owner.
On some NYC streets, navigating the crap that covers the sidewalks can be like running a gantlet. And as this map created by The Economist shows, there are definitely some neighborhoods that have it worse than others. Compiled from complaints submitted across all the boroughs, as seen above, the shittiest nabes of 2014 include Upper Manhattan on the east side, a good deal of the Bronx, Bed-Stuy and, unsurprisingly, Bushwick, where just last year neighborhood artists were glittering the deserted turds of their furry friends in gold.
As the magazine writes, “New York boasts over 600,000 hounds—one for every 14 people—generating over 100,000 tons of turd a year.” And as we all know, a good deal of that remains on the ground ready for some unknowing sneaker to smear it across the sidewalk so other folks can get a sampling themselves.
While the map is insightful in its own right, it was actually created to help illustrate the greater economic problem of hauling all that unsightliness to landfills. As it stands, it costs the city over $100 to dispose of a ton of poop.
But as one dog’s excrement is another man’s treasure, Ron Gonen of Closed Loop Fund sees opportunity. Ronen wants to introduce “Sparky Power” to NYC parks, a program that would outfit the city’s green spaces with small anaerobic digesters that could turn pooch poop into power for lamps and other park equipment. According to The Economist, bringing digesters in three parks would cost of around $100,000 and the parks department is said to be considering a pilot program.
[Via The Economist]
RELATED:
