025. Waste Composting

Description

This article is from the rec.pets.dogs: Assorted Topics, posted to rec.pets.dogs newsgroup. Maintained by Cindy Tittle Moore with numerous contributions by others.

025. Waste Composting

Are there sanitary and effective alternatives to shoveling feces from your backyard into your trashcan? Especially if you have multiple dogs?

There are a number of products on the market, such as the "Doggy Dooly", "'Liminate", etc. Reported experiences vary widely. Some were satisfied, others could not get them to work.

The basic premise is to set up a "composting pile" that, with added enzymes, will decompose into odorless liquid and gas wastes. Some are elaborate affairs that require you to dig a large pit lined with gravel and bury a container (with the lid at ground level) over the gravel that drains the decomposed and harmless waste into the soil below. Others are simplar plastic bucket affairs.

Pros:

* Feces don't sit in the garbage all week.

* Don't need extra bags in cleaning stools up.

Cons:

* Composters rarely work in winters with below or near freezing temperatures.

* Despite claims of "odorless waste products", the feces in there can smell quite badly until fully decomposed.

* Rocks and sticks can interfere with digestion.

* Usually the amount of enzyme to add is fussy: it won't work well with either too much or too little added.

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