Browsing by Author "Talvio, Satu"

There are about 30 000 dogs in the city of Helsinki, the capital city of Finland. Dog excrements are destined eather on the communal waste system or in the city environment: in the streets, parks, beaches or forests. Dog droppings cause both a visible and smelly problem especially in the springtime when the snow melts. Nutrients and microbiological harmful substances run to the runoff waters, and the growing amount of dog excrements is engaging the communal waste management by collecting the manure and handling it. In this study the dog droppings were studied in four parks in the city of Helsinki. The droppings that were collected in the trash bins by the dog owners and the droppings that were left in the ground near the bins were weighted daily for twenty days in November- December 2017. The study was a quantitative field study, in which the weight of the droppings were weighted and the material of the excrement bag was registered. The study was divided in two parts. In the first part the amount of droppings that were left uncollected in to the intended bins was measured. In the other part the effect of dropping bag was estimated from the sewage handling and waste disposal point of view. The theoretical frame of reference was the analysis of environmental impacts of dogs, which was considered by using the amount of dogs in Helsinki and the results of the measurements, and reflecting them in the international scientific studies. The results were also compared with a survey ”Koirat kaupungissa” that was published by the city of Helsinki in 2017. The results of the measurements show that the dog population of Helsinki put out approximately 1 358 tons of manure per year, and 148 tons of that amount end up in the streets and the park environment despite of the sanitation law. Slight differences between parks were discovered: in relation the largest amount of excrements were left uncollected in the Runar Schildt park, in the suburban area in the northwest of the city of Helsinki. The dog excrement bag materials variated in the trash bins. The waste management could theoretically benefit of standardization of the bags, and it could be beneficial to get all the manure collected in bags that compost easily and would be composted. The nutrients of the excrements could be then collected and taken advantage of. This was anyhow found difficult, because even the best of the bag materials do not compost properly, and are being burned as mixed garbage with the dog excrements. The effects of dog excrements in the urban areas are also considered in this study.