Another Poo subject

[Ritzmar]

Many thanks, Harry, Dave & Peter for your support.  It is gratifying to find others able to think for themselves and willing to add their voices.  I could actually quote names of local council officials to whom I have spoken on the phone, and who have promised to look into the litter problem on Middlewood Way in recent years, but have subsequently not so much as lifted a finger to do anything about it.  If the apathy continues I shall attempt to 'name and shame' them into getting something done and earning their money.

As to the tying of dog faeces into plastic bags and then dumping it, has anyone heard of anything dafter?  

[Peter]

Lyme Park now I believe have a new policy that unless you are in the car park, hall or lake area you are asked to leave your dog poo where it falls to naturally de-compose.
Of course if the owner can kick the offending mess into the undergrowth then all the better.
This is a response to the crazy practice some people have of bagging it in plastic and then abandoning the lot when no one is looking.

[Dave]

Thanks for a bit of common sense, Ritzmar - on this issue (an old favourite in this forum) it can sometimes be a scarce commodity.  Yes, dog mess should always be cleaned up from pavements, parks, sports fields, and canal towpaths where they pass through urban or suburban areas, and owners who don't do this should be fined.  But when you're on a country footpath or bridleway, picking your way past the steaming heaps of what the horses have left behind, not to mention all the rest of God's creatures, it's faintly ridiculous to find signs (sometimes among discarded plastic bottles and cans, as Ritzmar points out) threatening people with a hefty fine unless they put dog mess in a paper bag and take it away.  '>

Have to agree with Ritzmar.


The dirtiest creatures on this planet are humans.

By a long way.

[Ritzmar]

My wife I regularly use Middlewood Way to walk our dog.  It puzzles me to see poop bins around that area in which to deposit perfectly normal canine excrement (as opposed to the droppings from mice, horses, birds, rats [more of these later] cats, voles, squirrels, rabbits, foxes, badgers and occasionally, humans, all left to bio-degrade perfectly naturally within a couple of days, as it has done for millions of years).    
 
And yet we find mountains of bottles, cans, plastics, newspapers, etc., many of which items take a hundred years or more to rot down, with no rubbish bins around in which to place this highly environmentally-unfriendly detritus.  We have both tried to persuade various local government departments over the years to clean up the area to no avail, and so we and a few other like-minded citizens regularly take plastic bags to collect rubbish from Rose Hill to the A6 bridge whilst walking our dogs, in an attempt to at least minimise the impact on the environment which the filthy habits of some people has.
 
I can well see the need for pavements to be kept free of dog faeces, but the mess left by those of a higher evolutionary order (?) seems to go unregarded by the law and by those local government departments responsible for health and safety.
It is now a proved fact that rats (ever resourceful) are multiplying at a massive rate, due in no small part to the amount of organic material casually discarded by the unspeakable, in the form of donner kebabs, beefburgers, fish, chips, curries, etc., slung carelessly in the street, often at night when the general public are few, and the rats can safely forage for food.  With the stray dogs which were so common when I was a child (rightly) removed from the streets, rats have a much better chance of multiplying and are doing so at an alarming rate.  Laws on litter ought to be much more stringent with far heavier fines, or even imprisonment for persistent offenders, with the same kind of zealous enforcement applied which the police in their laughable application of the law reserve for motorists, or pubs serving alcohol after time to citizens otherwise peacefully engaged.

Yes, fine people for allowing their dogs to foul public footways, but let us get our priorities in the correct order. '>

[MCC Executive Committee]

A correction: The "poop bin" opposite the former Legion Club was provided in partnership with SMBC and Marple Business Forum- NOT Etherow Goyt Valley, sorry about that.
Spoke to Waterways today, they are launching a national campaign at Crufts Dog Show in March about dog walking along towpaths- they intend providing more "pooper" bins along their towpaths nationally - we asked them to consider more along the Peak Forest Canal and Macclesfield Canal- Waterways provide the bins and the bags, but the real long term cost is of course emptying the bins and disposing of the contents- we believe the latter is carried out by SMBC in partnership with Waterways- see what happens (probably a costly exercise, but they are trying)!
Does anyone know of particular "black spots" around Marple where a bin might be useful or more publicity ie stickers, posters etc could help?- as an example, next time you walk round Etherow Park, look out for the notices near Compstall Mill.
 Â 

[MCC Executive Committee]

"Poop Bins" are on our agenda for January.
We will be exploring with the Enviromental Health section within SMBC and Waterways, to look at ourselves funding more bins along the canal and giving more publicity to the problem, in particular the Peak Forest arm, but that is not to say our urban area is not a problem still, but the canal is "littered" for quite a long way.
We have discussed this before.
By the way, the bins along the canal opposite the former Legion Club had a financial input from the Etherow Goyt Valley Partnership, a little known but very worthy organisation, who work closely with Waterways and SMBC.
(Dare one say, that this writer was it's chairman at the time.)
May I say that the dogs are not to blame, owners of dogs do know what their responsibilities are when they take their dogs for "walkies", and know full well what their dogs are likely to do, so there is no excuse really is there?
 Â 

Are we ever going to get poo bins on the streets for people to use, or are they just expected to carry it around with them. I don't see the point of the council putting dog mess signs up if they don't provide the bins.

[Peter]

In the old forum we had quite a lively debate on dog poo!
Quick to condemn but quick to praise, I must congratulate Inland Waterways for making the move and installing new poo bins at strategic spots along the tow paths, well done.
All we have to do now is not only educate people to bag and bin their dogs mess but convince the brain dead few who bag and then abandon the poo nicely sealed in the bag. Surely it doesn't take a genius to realise that we are then left with a situation where we have a non biodegradable plastic bag, full of sh-one-t, where before we had a lump of wonderfully degradeable poo. Much better I'm sure to leave it as nature intended if you are not going to complete the whole operation. '>