London councillor makes a stink over dog poop concerns

A city councillor has a bone to pick with dog walkers in London.

During a discussion about a toilet-themed public awareness campaign yesterday at the civic works committee, Coun. Phil Squire turned the discussion around to dog walkers who deposit bags of their pets’ waste in public garbage cans.

He says he’s received several complaints about the smell.

“It’s becoming increasingly an issue that people are using our public garbage cans to dump their pet’s feces,” said Squire. “I’m finding that people are starting to make an assumption that our public garbage cans are a place to deposit these.”

Squire says he’d prefer if dog walkers dispose of the waste at home rather than public garbage bins, and suggest a public awareness campaign could help solve the problem.

Jay Stanford, London’s head of environment and solid waste, says the issue is on their radar.

“We do not have a program at this point in time but the concerns have been growing over this past summer, maybe there’s more dogs out in London or dog walks,” said Stanford. “We’ve heard more concerns brought to us from councillors and residents, we’ll see if there’s a better solution we can start looking at.”

Stanford says he will work with the city’s parks and bylaw departments on the issue.