It turns out that there are tons of incentive problems with cleaning up after your pet, meaning that as a dog-owning economist with a blog I’m obligated to write about all of them. I talked about the idea of placing a special bin on city streets for dog-waste in yesterday’s post with an eye toward recycling dog-waste for energy. Today, I came across a post on the Freakonomics blog that cites a city that is doing something similar, albeit for the purpose of fining those dog owners who aren’t as responsible as myself. From the original article:
The city will use the DNA database it is building to match feces to a registered dog and identify its owner.
Owners who scoop up their dogs’ droppings and place them in specially marked bins on Petah Tikva’s streets will be eligible for rewards of pet food coupons and dog toys.
But droppings found underfoot in the street and matched through the DNA database to a registered pet could earn its owner a municipal fine.
Hopefully, this will be my last dog-poop-related post for a while. Speaking of which, it’s time for Layla’s walk!