percent of the garbage from residential collections in San Francisco. “The city saw this percentage and said to us, We need to get down to zero [waste to landfills], so we want you to start thinking about how to collect the dog waste and what can be done with it,’” Reed said. The high percentage is not surprising considering that San Francisco is home to an estimated 120,000 dogs, far more than there are children. San Franciscans may be responsible about cleaning up after their dogs. But most of the droppings are wrapped in plastic bags and end up in landfills, where the waste may sit for generations. If it’s not picked up, animal waste may dissolve into the soil and flow into the groundwater.
-March 21, 2006 Stefan Lovgren for National Geographic News
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