Before there were cars people rode horses and they pooped in the street.  Cities employed armies of people to clean up the streets.  As horses were replaced the street sweepers faded away and as an unintended consequence dog poop became ubiquitous in urban areas.  Campaigns to “curb your dog” and laws to make it happen became common.  Finally in the 1970’s in most cities it became statute that the owner of a dog pick up the dogs poop.  As a libertarian I support this idea, as a pedestrian I welcome it and as a dog owner I try to follow the new rules.

To make it easier to pick up after your dog, areas with lots of dog walking going on started installing dispensers for dog poop bags.  Unfortunately they were much easier to install than to keep stocked.  I have often railed about this and used the sight of empty dispensers as evidence of the incompetence of government.  I argued that by not requiring dog owners to supply their own bags, creating dependency, and then doing a lousy job of supplying them through the government the dog poop problem was made worse.

I was talking to Lillian about this in Eaton Canyon one beautiful morning last week and she told me of a third choice.  At the dog park near her home in La Jolla people restock the dispenser with old plastic grocery sacks.  This gives the community a three-for-one benefit; recycling, a cleaner park and the pleasure of helping.  This kind of organic, dare I say “holistic”, solution to one of life’s little problems delights me.  People left to their own devices will often self organize around solutions that benefit their communities.  It also reminded me of a weekly maxim from a few months ago: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”  Mahatma Gandhi.

Yesterday I left some bags in the empty dispenser in Eaton Canyon.  Thanks Lillian for showing me this idea.