October 2021
Managing pet waste is a challenge.
With the average dog producing 120 kilograms of waste each year and a typical 40-storey condo building having up to 280 dogs, this turns out to be 33,600 kilograms of dog waste each year. There is a health and cost concern to poor management of dog waste which contains viruses, bacteria and parasites which can cause disease.
Canary District Condos has installed a system to deal with dog waste that diverts organic material destined for landfills to a facility for conversion to energy.
The system was built and installed by Sutera which offers a complete line of underground waste disposal units. Each unit has 95 percent of the containment well underground with only the disposal access tube above ground. See a Sutera video for an explanation of how in-ground waste disposal systems function and their benefits. One community was able to replace 24 rolling totes emptied every few days with a single unit emptied once every two weeks.
Dog waste is disposed of in a sealed container smaller than a standard recycling or waste receptacle. It drops below ground into a well. Each well is made of concrete and can hold up to 500 pounds of dog poop. Wells are emptied about once a month by vacuum trucks and transported to a waste-to-energy facility.
Storing waste below ground, where it is cooler and out of the sun, reduces the rate of decomposition and virtually eliminates odours. The health danger to people and pets is eliminated.
Each pet waste system costs about $2,500 to install.
Sutera Waste Management Installations
