Ecology: Its Price (Again)

SUMMARY: From spewing sewage and garbage to fouled water to colored toilet paper and Bald Eagles to speeches to composting and cleanup and dog agility.

Earlier posts in a similar vein:

• Ecology: Its Price (July 2019), but today's covers a lot more ground.

• A few other posts on composting & dog poo & other such stuff

Backfill: My response on a Facebook thread discussing Glass Beach up north from here, near Fort Bragg, where there's almost no glass left of the once profuse garbage dump remnants because people have taken it, and one person's astonishment that people would have dumped their trash into the ocean: 

"so sad.  'It’s ok, let’s pollute the ocean.' It just blows my mind that people in an my day Would think that way." 

I don't know her or her background at all, but I'm grateful that it sparked my brain's sh**load of material on that topic.

Disclaimer: Wrote this on the fly in a comment, haven't edited much at all except adding some links, so sorry for haphazard wandering. No theme statement. No outline. No editing for readability. Just--dumping my truckload of environmental stuff into your ocean.

Yes, sadly, welcome to the 20th century. And--still onward into the 21st. 🙁 Dumping stopped at the Ft. Bragg Glass Beach(es) in the late '60s as I understand it and they started cleaning up dump leftovers (not sure what exactly that entailed). But people's junk STILL has to go somewhere.

Down here in Silicon Valley, the valley and surrounding hills are filled with active "landfills" and also lovely cleaned up, grassy, elevated parks and hills that are former landfills within my lifetime. But residents have spread out enough that trying to find somewhere to dump the trash of the 2 million people in this county is dire--we'll run out of current space eventually, despite all the effort at recycling.

The East River in NYC was still receiving dumped waste and sewer waste into the '90s. Now it's actually swimmable a good portion of the time. The Hudson River (I lived within walking distance of it for several years), which flows to the sea around Liberty Enlightening The World, was notoriously bad and although much has been done to improve it, the residue lingers.

The rivers that caught fire in the late '60s from all the pollution-- much better now.

But the first earth day was only in 1970. Most people didn't think about all of these things much. I did an award-winning speech in a local competition for students early that decade on the topic of "ecology: its price". (I think my focus was more on "ecology: the price of ignoring it!" Also: "ecology" was the term then; not so much "environment".) That was when I thought that I'd never see a live bald eagle here in the mainland U.S. because they'd all be gone because of DDT (Rachel Carson's Silent Spring only came out in the '60s). Now they're nesting in school yards and parks near populations of millions.

That was when I started convincing family and friends not to buy colored TP [that's a fun link! Check it out for the photos anyway] because of the toxic dyes being dumped into waterways (I mean, who'd want white when you could have bright blue to match your decor? -- nowadays, I don't think I ever see colored TP anywhere). That's when we started collecting cans and bottles to take to the very small very local recycling center at the nearby college where we'd have to crush the cans and break the glass before tossing them into the huge separate dumpsters--one for aluminum, one for tin cans & such, one for green glass, one for clear glass, etc.-- to be taken to recycling places. So we went out and bought our own different-colored plastic bins to put our compostables in. (The last of mine just died--have used them only for garden chores since the garbage companies started providing their own containers.)

1994: In the background, our black trash cans. Behind them are a green and a yellow bin (can't see the blue one) that I believe are those that the garbage company eventually provided us, not the ones we bought.

(Plastics weren't A Thing back then--we've really gone backwards since then with plastic use and we're in trouble again if we can't get that under control, and people don't think about how plastics are so much worse than cans and bottles! You undoubtedly are aware of that yourself. It scares me. And it scares me how much it limits my purchases of anything--food or anything else--if I try to avoid plastic) .

When local municipalities started requiring you to put your recyclables into separate containers from the trash for trash collection--so amazing to see that happen!--around here in the late '80s after the passage of AB939 required California municipalities to have a plan to reduce landfill waste (and I know all of this because of my work as a Master Composter--in fact, the MC training program existed because of it and I was in the 2nd-ever class)-- I remember a good friend ranting about how disgusting it was that she had to maintain more than one container for garbage in her yard and that she had to keep the metal and glass garbage out of her kitchen trash or she'd have to handle it all covered with garbage and she was furious for a long time, despite all the data I spewed at her about landfills and all that. (Another example of people who don't care about something or have a strong opinion not being swayed by data.)  [CAN YOU BELIEVE almost that entire paragraph was one sentence?! This is why I should edit my brain dumps.]

Nowadays, around here anyway, you cannot use just any container for trash. They'll collect trash ONLY from the bins that the garbage company provides and ONLY from the recycling bins ditto.  Now we don't have to separate our recyclables into several separate containers--it all goes into one big one for sorting later. So now I use my old wonderful eternally lasting black plastic ones (previous photo) for other stuff.

My containers from the trash collectors:
my neat and tidy giant recycling bin and tiny trash can, and the neighbor's overflowing ones
(garbage company doesn't like that, but they collect 'em anyway)
Does show progress that the recycling bin is so much larger than the landfill bin

Some local cities sort the trash even *after* it has been collected (<- video, kind of cool; I've been on a tour, but note that the huge quantities that they discuss are ONLY for the small city of Sunnyvale pop. 153,000, vs. the total population of the county pop. 1.9 million).

For years, we held agility competitions in the  huge softball fields adjacent to
the old landfill hill that the preceding video shows at about a minute in.

All of this to say-- "pollute" wasn't a big word until well into the 2nd half of the 20th century. People didn't think like that. I don't know how much of that you lived through, but that was the way the world worked for millennia. 🙂 (I haven't lived for millennia, in case you wondered.) And many  people are still thinking like that in many areas (who cheered when Trump backed us out of the Paris Accord?).

Ecology, Its Price

SUMMARY: We live in world-changing times--literally--

From Facebook: My comment on another writer's posting of the article mentioned below, June 30, 2019.

Back then: In high school, I wrote and delivered (many times) a [winning] speech on "Ecology: Its Price", went on a campaign to convince my parents to never again buy TP or paper towels or tissues that were dyed pretty colors (it was pretty common back then to have paper that matched your room...and I loved it until I read about the dyes and dying processes) and to recycle all our metal and glass, which we had to take down to the local volunteer recycling parking lot at the Junior College, smash them ourselves, and toss into huge bins for later pick-up, long before anyone thought it was cool (or required!) to do that kind of thing. A few very small steps in the right direction.

In between: Since then, on my own, I always recycled everything that I could, carrying them to recycling centers until local garbage companies started providing separate bins for curbside recycling.  I compost my own food waste so it doesn't go into landfills. (Used to compost all my yard waste until just a few years ago, due to my physical limitations.) Since then, it gets harder and harder to give up the things that one is accustomed to. I don't often eat meat any more. I'm resisting putting A/C into my house. But ...

Now: ...I still drive a gas-powered minivan [because I have larger dogs and need room for their crates and gear, right?] and drive places a lot and am planning my third round-trip flight to Walt Disney World in 4 years and have realized that the amount of plastic that I bring home just from the grocery store is insane but despair of having the personal energy to bring it back down again (I was perfectly happy to bring home peanut butter in glass jars; why would they mess with perfectly good washable reusable recyclable glass and metal packaging??).

Future: I'm pretty terrified about living to see how our current ecological disaster plays out. And my part in either mitigating or making worse. Driving--flying--home energy use--plastics OMG--diet--changing how I shop and how I prepare food--saving water--crazy things like, if I don't eat meat but I own dogs, there'll still be a meat industry for pet food, yikes--  I donate to organizations that I think have the right idea and that take action on the ideas, and I'm including political influence in there. One thing at a time, I suppose, like anything else. One small step at a time just like I did Back Then.

(In response to someone posting this article about what climate scientists do at home to save the planet, which has good but tough ideas on how they've changed, and scary comments on how scared they are.)

A post in 2020 covers the same awards but digs much more deeply into pollution and its history in my lifetime and my experiences.

Poo Power

SUMMARY: A practical use for dog waste.

Some of you may know that I am a Master Composter for the County of Santa Clara. Means, yes, I teach occasional workshops on backyard composting, and, yes, ask me questions about yard waste and composting and voila I answer. Usually.

I just don't have really good answers about what to do with doggie droppings. Here are some answers, none of which are completely satisfactory (depending on where you live and your resources):

• If it's Tika's, pick it up quickly or Boost will either roll in it or eat it. (I know you wanted to know.)
• Don't compost it in your yard waste compost bin--same reason you don't want to compost human waste: Carnivore/omnivore waste contains pathogens that aren't easily destroyed. So the poop might go away but not necessarily the nasty bits, and if you're putting it all into one place, it might concentrate that, and if you're using the compost for your food garden--well--I wouldn't put dog poop in it.
• That said: It is organic matter and it will decompose. I've heard from many people that Just Do It: Put it in the compost and don't worry about it.
• If your yard is large enough, let it decompose where it is or off to the side somewhere; Ma Nature is very good at dealing with that sort of thing.
• There are doggie doo digesters;  Basically a plastic bin with no bottom that you bury in the ground and add the appropriate digester enzymes and water. I tried one for about 3 years and it never worked properly for me. A neighbor in my new neighborhood had no luck with one, either. I have read about them working for others.
• There is another commercial product that claims to handle dog waste. They made a presentation at a Master Composter meeting and it was all hype, not hard info, and they weren't willing to let the composters have one to test it. Don't remember its name. Seems extremely dubious.
• Add a direct sewer connection and shovel it into that.
• Dump it into your toilet.
• Hire a dog poo service and let them deal with it.
• Bag it and toss it in the trash. (That's what I now do. I've been told that some municipalities prohibit that.)

But now here's a very cool idea for places that have larger amounts of dog waste: A digester that produces and uses methane on location!
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-09/fidos-poo-powers-streetlight-massachusetts-dog-park
Would be interesting to know how much input it requires to provide useful amounts of output. As of yet, it's just a demo; no commercial models are available. But what a great idea!

Miscellany All Over Again

SUMMARY: various subjects--

Sylvia Trkman has a new web site, with discussion pages.

Weather--Monday: Snow on Mount Hamilton and frost warnings. (It was beautiful! And I didn't have my camera with me!) Today: I want to have my screen door open but it's off the track and won't budge! Maybe later this week I'll dink around with it.

June 22 is Take Your Dog To Work Day. Mark your calendars and check with the boss! (My boss says OK! As long as you remember to stay at your desk and work!)

I didn't take a single photo of Tika last week and thus missed 52 Weeks For Dogs *again*. This is the 3rd or 4th time. I just can't keep up. I did so want to push myself to get a great album of Tika shots, but I think this was just one more commitment too many. Will probably have to resign.

My hip is really bothering me. If my MD is right and it's a muscle thing, why does it get worse after 3 days of doing nothing and better after a day of hiking? She said it might *seem* that was but that's not really what's going on. Argh. OK, now back to relying on the miracles of modern chemistry.

8 days of agility in a 16-day period?! Am I nuts? Or what?

San Francisco might be using dog waste to produce energy! Or--has this experiment fizzled? I can't find anything on this later than 2007 on my couple of quick searches.

Earthquakes: 7.2 in Mexico Easter Sunday just south of the California border. Fortunately not much there, not much damage. You can see a cool map of the 30,000+ people who reported online about how strong it felt. On that same site, if you search their archives for your state in the U.S., you might be surprised about how many quakes are recorded for your area, too, and you can see similar maps of responses. Right, Johann The Dog who just moved to Tennessee?

The U.S. Team for the European Open championships have been announced, and four Bay Teamers are in the large dog group (Nancy, Channan, Silvina, Robert (Rob)). Is it no wonder we always have trouble getting blue ribbons around here? :-)

Another local who also trains at Power Paws (as I do) is in the medium dogs: Marcy Mantell, who is a talented photographer in her own right and who is now the first and only U.S. dog (ever, I believe) to  World Agility Champion/ AKC National Agility Champion simultaneously. She has posted some videos from the AKC trial on You Tube:
Finals,  ISC,  Round 1 - Standard  , Round 2 - JWW,   Round 3 - Hybrid




Meanwhile, Ashley and Luka are back in training now that her injury, whatever it was, seems to have healed.

Am I proud of my friends and teammates? You betcha!

Are my dogs eager to be doing something? You betcha!

What a Waste

SUMMARY: Recycling and doggie droppings.

Back in high school in the early 1970s (there, I admit it), I wrote a couple of speeches about ecology and the environment, and then I got all hot under the collar about Things We Can Do At Home To Save The Earth. This was back when recycling was something you did to get back on a bicycle. Or else weird counterculture stuff. I believe that I was the instigator for my parents to start recycling bottles and cans. This was back when you had to buy your own containers for recycling, if you wanted it separate from garbage, and then you had to go find someplace that would take your recyclables and transport them there, and sort them yourself into the appropriate bins, after crushing all the cans to save space, of course.

I think I let my parents do most of the actual work. Although when I moved out on my own I did all that stuff.

Also, just to be a good person, I have always picked up my dogs's messes in public. I used to get complimented because I'd walk around picking up after my dogs. Now people swear at me because my dogs poop in public. Weird world. Anyway. In your own yard (if it's not a giant ranch in, say, Marfa), you need to pick it up or else reencounter it in many unexpected and not necessarily pleasant ways.

Eventually, when I grew up a little bit, like in 1995 or so, I went through the program to become a Master Composter because I learned that soil is SO much happier with organic matter added, and besides it makes so much more sense to process your own yard waste. (Ask me someday for why. I'm a Master Composter. I have a very long list of reasons.)

Then there was the doggie droppings thing. When I walked out in public, we used to carry a trowel and a small paper bag. Then I'd scoop the poop into the bag and then throw out the bag. When I started doing Dog Activities with Dog People, I realized that plastic bags were way more convenient in so many ways: Moisture doesn't leak through them. Before use, they crush easily into a pocket. You can do the grab and lift and don't need a trowel. You can buy them on a very condensed roll and attach them to your leash.

When I had a Really Big Yard, during the winter, when it rained, we'd mostly leave the doggie deposits where they lay, as they'd fade into the soil under their own power. But the rest of the time, we used to gather it all into a large grocery bag and toss it in the trash.

So, Taj MuttHall Mom, What's Your Main Point?

And so, here's my main point. With my Concern For The Environment and finally being a Master Composter, I decided that I needed to find some way to deal with all of the solid waste produced by my canids.

So I bought a Doggie Dooley digester, which is basically a big plastic box with a lid that you bury in the ground, like a mini doggie-doo septic tank, and you periodically throw in your dog waste and some Doggie Dooley Digester Enzymes. It's supposed to just vanish in a trice and sink into the soil in an unobtrusive way.

Well, I tried for probably 3 years to get that thing to work. I added more liquid. Less liquid. More enzymes. A lot more enzymes. Fewer enzymes. I kept a big pole by the (very-rapidly-completely-filled) Dooley and stirred it and aerated it. A really fun thing to do on weekends. But I never, never got it to work. There were notes about clay soil not being perfect, but since our clay soil drained very well, I thought it wouldn't be an issue. But noooo--- I gave up finally.

I have corresponded with people in other parts of the country who have had good success with the thing. But not here.

So here are some other possibilities:

* Put in a plastic bag and into the trash. Actually, at least one agility site near here REQUIRES that the dog poo must be in plastic bags before it goes into their trash. But--all those plastic bags!

* Put into a paper bag and into the trash. However, some municipalities now apparently ban pet waste in the garbage entirely (hmm, trying to find a reference for that and can't. I believe it was Pacific Northwest somewhere). Plus, really, stuff that goes into the landfill gets buried so quickly and thoroughly that a lot of it just doesn't break down, or won't for centuries. I don't think paper or plastic really matters.

* Compost it. Ugh. Doggie poo (and that of most omnivorous/carnivorous animals) can or usually does contain all kinds of ugly pathogens that normal backyard composting won't kill and you don't want in contact with you, your vegetables, or your children. Not a good solution.

* Same applies, maybe, to leaving it lying around the yard to break down on its own, if you have a large-enough yard. But in this case, it would be far enough from where you're usually in direct contact with it that it wouldn't matter so much. But how many of us have yards that big?

* Flush it down the toilet. Gak, carrying that through the house?

* Put it into the sewer in some other manner, like build a sewer connection in your back yard. Expensive, although maybe cost effective for larger kennels. But now there's some indication that many of those pet pathogens are not destroyed in the water treatment process and are finding their way into the waters of the world. (Limited references available; mostly applies to cat waste.)


So what's an ecoconscious dog owner to do? I dunno. My current strategy is plastic bags into trash, both for public poos (small convenient-sized bags) and for backyard cleanup (one large bag weekly).

But someone just pointed out this gadget. Looks like an interesting idea, if it really works. And if you have $400 left over after doing dog agility. Anyone out there have any experience with this thang?

Compost Happens

SUMMARY: An award from one of my other lives.

In April of 1995, I enrolled in my first agility class. In October of 1995, I went through the County of Santa Clara's Master Composter program and became a--yes, you guessed it--Master Composter. The program was free, except, wait, you had to agree to give 50 hours related to composting back to the community.

In January of 1996, I entered my first agility trial, and eventually entered another 5 during that year. Back then, the World Wide Web was young, email was (relatively) young (who ever heard of spam?), bayteam.org wouldn't come into being for another 2 years, Taj MuttHall wasn't even a gleam in TMH-mom's eye. In other words--I had time!

I gave dozens of workshops to the community. I worked tables at fairs and home shows. I went to schools and gave talks. I answered questions by email. I constructed PVC sign frames for the program. I helped harvest the big demo worm bins and fill demo compost bins at Emma Prusch Park. I worked at city-wide and county-wide bin-sale days. I gave demo presentations for new classes of Master Composters. I put in many, many, many hours and I had a blast.

I earned my polo shirt for graduating, my sweatshirt for putting in 50 hours, my hat for 100 hours. And I kept going; for the next couple of years I must have put in, oh, 300 hours at least.

But then, as you also may guess, something insidious and really addictive started to take up all my weekends, and evenings, and spare moments everywhere, and gradually dog agility displaced most of my Master Composter activities. I clung to being an active member of the group, though. At one point I thought that my life's work might be as a compost evangelist, although I'm probably less likely now to produce shovels full of compost for party guests and say, "See? Doesn't it smell great?" Maybe only a little less likely. I've been working only maybe one or two compost-related events each of the last several years, just to keep my hands in it, so to speak.

Of course I compost volumes in my yard.

Well, the Home Composting Education Program did something new last night: Together with handing out certificates for the new graduating class of 25, they had an awards banquet for existing Master Composters. I sat with some gung-ho folks from the '04 and '05 classes who are already up in the 300-400-hour range. We saw some slides with impressive statistics about how many hours were volunteered back to the community during the last fiscal year. We saw that there is at least one person still active from every class dating back to the program's origin in 1995 (guess who!).

And then they handed out the really new thing: Pins for people based on how many hours they've worked. This is where I discovered that I've put in something like 465 volunteer hours, and I got my 250-hour pin.

Of the people attending, only 3 had more hours than I had. But, dagnabbit, there's a 500-hour pin, too! And I'm so close! Not that I'm competitive or anything, but...well... I want that pin! But where the heck in the next year am I going to find 35 hours free of dog-agility-related effort to put in those hours? Sheesh! They sure know how to give a kick in the pants to compost-crazy, award-motivated maniacs like myself. I'll do it--somehow, I'll get that pin by next May!

See you at the compost pile.