Not in your part of the world Antechinus, at least not if you believe your own governments.
“Clean up after your dog - faeces can contaminate ground… Do not put in compost bin.
www.nrm.qld.gov.au/education/modules/junior_secondary/ sec_biodiversity/resourcesheet10.html
“Almost anything that was once part of a plant or animal can
be composted …. Dog and cat manures are best buried in the garden as they
can be a source of parasites”
www.wollongong.nsw.gov.au/Downloads/Documents/ Fact_Sheet_-_Composting.pdf
The sites you cited are using the precautionary principle - not trusting readers to build and maintain an effective composter. I googled just as many saying it is OK.
I am quite familiar with composting toilets. Composting toilets however are to home compost what a toxic waste dump is to a backyard midden. I fail to see the relevance.
Not at all. All composters have air holes o allow the compost to breathe. If they don’t then you have big problems. If they do the hoels will be more than large enough to allw the entry of maggots. DO a Google search on soldier flies and compost and tell me what you learn.
Want to bet I Googled far more sites confirming the moon landings were a hoax? You’ll understand if I trust my government and university sites over your sites.
http://www.uaf.edu/coop-ext/compost/dogs.html gives specific instructions on how to compost dog manure and sawdust, and only dog manure and sawdust, It is not normal home composting. I would liken it to you finding a site with instructions on how to prepare fugu and using that as evidence that it is safe to eat puffer fish. Very specific instructions on how to make a potentially dangerous sbstance safe does not warrant laiming it is safe.
Weblife.org is just an online publishing organisation. It isn’t particular more credible than a moon hoax site. Al though it says “According to one source” that source is never actually referenced in a manner that we can access. Note that one of the few tracable references it does give suggests that "The effective processes are those that either make the excreta warm (55°C/131°F), hold it for a long time (one year), or feature some effective combination of time and temperature.”
How many home compost systems hold material at 55oC for 12 months?
Of course you can believe it as you wish. I’ll stick with what the actual authorities have to say.
If your dog decides he/she likes to dig, you’ll want to take that poop and put it in the holes he/she digs. That was recommended to me and it has cut down on my dog’s digging alot.
I don’t have anything else to add because I’m lucky enough to live next to a freeway fence and in front of some woods. Poop goes there. Helps keep critters away if they are smart enough to know what a dog smells like (or I’d like to think so).
Wow - thanks for all of the feedback. I think I won’t be composting just to be sure. I like the idea of biodegradable plastic bags - why aren’t they more available and widespread? I’ll assume due to increased cost.
Yeah, they are a little pricey. I see that the site I linked to has them pretty cheap in bulk, but I don’t need THAT many! (But if you would use them every day, the bulk case may well be a good option for you.) I buy them at Petco for about $12 per box of 24. I figure it’s worth 50 cents a pop (a buck a poop?) not to have to pick up warm turds with my hands, even if it is through plastic. And we usually leave the bag open until we’re sure both dogs are done, so sometimes we get two poops for the price of one.
An Arky, why would it be bad to put dog poop and toilet paper in the toilet? That’s what we’ve always done whenever we had puppy accidents in the house. Although I can’t say I’d want to bring it in the house from outside.
“For the love of Mike, listen to the experts and not Yeah.”
That’s fine with me but it happens that I am an expert. My day job is preventing the transmission of infectious diseases for what is, many people would say, the world’s premier disease control agency. I have been doing this for 20+ years all over the world. I’m familiar with everything you cite but I stand by what I said. (What I said, by the way, did not include any recommendation to compost either dog poop or used diapers.) I am confident that if you had more information about the subject you would be better able to assess the advice given on the internet and would agree with me.
“For the love of Mike, listen to the experts and not Yeah.”
That’s fine with me but it happens that I am an expert. My day job is preventing the transmission of infectious diseases for what is, many people would say, the world’s premier disease control agency. I have been doing this for 20+ years all over the world. I’m familiar with everything you cite but I stand by what I said. (What I said, by the way, did not include any recommendation to compost either dog poop or used diapers.) I am confident that if you had more information about the subject you would be better able to assess the advice given on the internet and would agree with me.
Pick it up with bio-degradeable plastic of paper bags, a sheet of of plain ordinary newpaper works well also. Put it in the garbage pick up to go to a land-fill. Toilet paper and flush down the commode, it will be processed with all the other human and kitchen waste and the effluent from the sewage disposal plant is alleged to be equal to or possilby better that the water treatment plant that supplies your drinking water!
How many time is the same water cycled through a water treatment plant, used in a city or town, exits downstream via the sewage treatment plant to the same river before it gets to the Gulf of Mexico? Ugh!
I use put my plastic bags with with poop into the giant size coffee can with a lid on top. Once a week, I empty all of it into a trash bag and put it out for trash pick-up. The can stinks so I fill it almost half way with Clorox for about two or three hours. The can still stinks but I only smell it when the lid is off, which is only briefly until trash day. Is this unhealthy?
Oh and every three weeks or so, I get a new coffee can.
Wow. Blake. That’s a lot of links you’ve got there.
But I’m sorry to tell you that you’re not correct.
Human feces have been and still are used to fertilize food crops all over the world.
The reason why virtually every information source aimed at the average home composter says not to compost dog or human feces is that the average home composter doesn’t maintain his or her pile in such a way as to ensure the destruction of pathogens. It’s good general beginner advice, but it can’t be taken as evidence that poop should not or can not be composted if it’s done carefully.
In fact the goal of most composting information out there is to convince people that composting is easy. Many people think it’s better to just tell people not to compost the problematic things than to tell them how to do it properly. The problem is that these recommendations for beginners somehow become gospel. You can definitely compost poop, meat, dairy, and all sorts of things that are supposed to be big no-nos.
But antechinus’s assertions that dog and human feces are rendered safe by ordinary home composting are misleading at best. He posts some links from the Humanure website, including one that says that a thermophilic compost pile will destroy the pathogens. But as I said above, the average home composter can not ensure sufficient thermophilic action. Antechinus also fails to point out is that Joseph Jenkins doesn’t rely on only the thermophilic action of the compost pile to render the humanure safe for use on food crops. He leaves each pile for about two years before he uses the compost. Even the most active proponent of humanure composting indicates that human and dog feces need to be composted in a certain way to ensure safety.
The answer is that human and dog feces CAN be composted IF it’s done correctly. Many people succesfully compost their dogs’ waste and/or their own waste. Several people in this thread have described acceptable methods for dealing with it. But if you’re not willing to take the time to do it right, you probably shouldn’t do it at all.
Yeah claims to be an expert. I’m not an expert, but I’m a true-blue composting freak. I love to do it, talk about it, read about it. I’m pretty knowledgable on the subject. And in my non-expert but certainly knowledgable opinion, Yeah is correct.
As I pointed out earlier Green Bean, if the reader maintains an effective composter, the risk presented by the composting of dog faeces is controlled.
The post to the humanure site was simply intended to point out that temperature and time destroys pathogens.
If the ‘average home composter’ cannot maintain a composter that will not attract vectors and not support thermophilic action, then the risk is not managed. The sites that blake quoted are applying a percautionary approach because they do not want to be held liable.
Taking a risk management appraoch - the more dog/human faeces you add to the pile, the better your controls (eg excluding pests, heat, time) must be to manage the risk. I would expect risk arising from adding a few dog poos would be controlled by an ‘average’ composter. The more poos you add, the more vigilant you should be in maintaining these controls