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More Cities Use DNA To Catch Dog Owners Who Don't Pick Up Waste
dkatana writes: For many cities one of the biggest cleaning expenses is dealing with dog poop. While it is impossible to ask the birds to refrain from splattering the city, dogs have owners and those owners are responsible for disposing of their companion's waste. The few who shirk their duty create serious problems for the rest. Poop is not just a smelly inconvenience. It's unsanitary, extra work for cleaning crews, and in the words of one Spanish mayor, on a par with vandalism. Cities have tried everything from awareness campaigns with motorized poo videos, to publishing offenders names to mailing the waste back to the dog owner. In one case, after a 147 deliveries, dog waste incidents in the town dropped 70 percent. Those campaigns have had limited effect and after an initial decline in incidents, people go back to their old ways. Which has left many cities resorting to science and DNA identification of waste. Several European cities, including Naples and one borough in London, are building DNA registries of pets. Offending waste will then be tested and the cost of the analysis charged to the dog owner, along with a fine.
Then you're telling people it's OK to let their dogs shit everywhere. That's a bad idea. Moreover, the dogshit cleaners will be AWOL most of the time (government workers, you know) so there will STILL be dogshit on the streets all the time. Costs will go up every year, and the people who actually clean up after their dogs will be the ones who suffer the most.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
That's like charging a "speeding tax" to everyone on the road and then letting people drive as fast as they want.
It's a minority of the dog owners in most towns that don't pick up after their dogs. Charging everyone for a few shitheads violating the law is bad policy, no matter what the offense is.
Well, what about allowing a credit for people who do the right thing and pick up after their pets?
After they pick up the poo, they mail it into the relevant authority (along with a photo of the act, and a close-up of the dogs' ID tags/barcodes/whatever), and said authority issues them a credit against the cost of the poo-pickup-tax.
I mean, who wouldn't want to mail some poo to a govt. department?
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom