One village in Spain is taking its dog poop problem into their own hands. Faced with uncollected dog poop littering their streets, the village of Brunete has formed a poop task force, comprised of twenty informers, who rat out owners who don’t clean up after their pups. The patrol then hand-delivers the guilty parties a gift – the “forgotten” poop.
It may seem like a silly plan, but thus far Brunete’s dog poop watch has worked. City council organized volunteers scope out the offending owners, then casually strike up friendly conversations in order to pry sneaky information- like where they may live or offender’s names. The names are then looked up at the city council to find their addresses. The undercover poop patrol then give back what the dog owners had forgotten, delivering the poop to their homes and stating they are returning “lost property.”
The simple plan has been resoundingly effective, cutting down Brunete’s poop problem by a whopping 70 percent. Brunete’s mayor, Borja Gutierrez, has said that the #cacaexpress campaign has cost the city next to nothing, creating a nearly free way for citizens to take back their streets. Since fining people didn’t seem to stop the carelessness, returning the offending excrement seemed to send the message- as no one wants a hand delivered package of poop to arrive at their front door.
Although Brunete’s program is remarkably effective, we think they could take it one step further, by then feeding the hand delivered poop into a biodigester, creating green energy from people’s negligence.
ViaTreehugger
Images © ell brown and ©A.Davey
