Dog poop has bright side: powering Mass. park lamp

[September 22, 2010]  CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) -- It stinks and it's a hazard to walkers everywhere, but it turns out dog poop has a bright side.

Dog poop is lighting a lantern at a dog park in Cambridge, Mass., as part of a monthslong project to get people thinking about not wasting waste.

After dogs do their business, signs on two steel tanks instruct owners to use biodegradable bags to pick up the poop and deposit it into the left tank. People then turn a wheel to stir its insides, which contain waste and water. Microbes in the waste give off methane, an odorless gas that is fed through the tanks to the lamp and burned off.

A similar idea to use dog poop for power was floated in San Francisco about four years ago but fizzled before it could be implemented.

[Associated Press; By JAY LINDSAY]

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