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The 180

Can dog poop power our homes?

The city of Waterloo launches a pilot project that will turn dog waste collected in its parks into usable energy. The mayor of Waterloo, Dave Jaworsky says it's a system that uses an old technology for a new purpose.
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What if there were benefits to picking up pooch poop? The city of Waterloo says there are, and they have a pilot project to prove it. (iStock/Getty Images)

Go for a walk in your local park and there is a good chance you'll come across a biological offering of sorts from neighbouring dogs.

Yup — dog poop. 

In most cities, if it's picked up, the small bags of waste end up in trash cans with the rest of the garbage. But what if the dog waste could be separated and put to use?

That's the idea behind a new pilot project in Waterloo.

Mayor Dave Jaworsky says it's simply a matter of using a technology that's already being used for a new purpose.

The city of Waterloo is launching a pilot project that will see receptacles like these in three of their public parks. (Sutera Canada)

"It's something that our rural partners have been doing for years. Essentially you take the 'organics' and mix them up and it goes into an anaerobic digester — a digester that works without oxygen — and over a period of up to 3 months, it converts it to gas. The gas then runs a generator, delivers some heat, delivers energy back to the grid and at the end of it, fertilizer falls out the bottom for our farm fields so it's a three way win."

The pilot project will have designated receptacles below ground level at three of the city's parks to start. Jaworsky says it's estimated that the waste from one receptacle would generate enough energy for 26 homes for a year.

In our parks we have 250 waste bins and once we collect those annually we have a quarter million pounds of waste that goes to landfill and analysis of that shows that every bin is between 40 and 80 per cent dog waste.  So we figure we have about 60 tonnes of dog waste going to landfill...and it would be great to be able to divert it and that's what this system does.- Dave Jaworsky

The city currently has traditional garbage barrels above ground but Jaworsky says during the hot summer months, odour was a problem. 

"This is a system that is about the size of two of those barrels, but below grade and made of concrete… It looks like a rural mailbox. You put your hand in, you drop it, it falls down a tube into the underground container system and from there it stays until it needs to be picked up...and then what we do is we bring by a vacuum truck."

Mayor Dave Jaworsky says he was skeptical of the idea at first. (City of Waterloo)

The idea began with a local innovator and Jaworsky says though he was initially skeptical of the idea, after seeing the receptacle and hearing about the benefits, he and the parks commissioner gave it the go ahead.

"It's a very attractive unit, it's made locally, it's done up with a picture of a dog on it. You can put your hand in and simply drop in the bag, and it all goes in there. It doesn't matter the kind of bag either because at the end of the system when it's taken to the processing site, it's mixed with other organics and shredded...and then treated in the high heat environment of the anaerobic digester."

The city will analyze the results of the pilot project, which begins in late May, at the end of the year.

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