The Daily IIJ

Berliners are fed up with dog muck. Berlin, a city of 3.4 millions, to the outsiders seems run very well. But the dogs are big problems. Every day, 200.000 Berlin’s dogs produce 16 tons of muck. Most of it just lying on the street, not being pick up by the dog’s owners.

“The doggy-poo is one of the main problem in Berlin”, said Thomas Kloeckner, spoke person of Berliner Stadtreinigung (BSR), one of the biggest city’s waste management company.

Some strange campaigns have been made to tackle the problem, including spreading pictures showing dog waste tied in balloons flying high up to the sky. The balloons filled up all over Berlin’s surface which bigger than Munich, Frankfurt and Stuttgart combine together.

“We just want people to realize how their dogs can cost a lot of problems for the city,” said Kloeckner.

Like always, Peter Haberstross walks his dog “Hexe” in the morning. The dog does its business on the street but Haberstross refuse to pick up the muck.

“BSR and city council already got money to do it. Let them clean the street,” he said. He argues that dogs are not the only one making mess on the streets. The other wild animals such as fox, squirrel and bird also has their contribution.

For decades, BSR has been responsible to recycle 50 % of Berliners household waste at their high cost 1 billion Euro plant. But BSR refuse to take responsible in cleaning the street from dog’s muck.

“It’s too expensive for us,” said Kloeckner. “It requires BSR to buy special hover to suck up the dog waste out of the street, along with the labors, which not cost cheap in Berlin.”

A street cleaner is paid 800-1500 Euro and a waste bin collector is paid 2200-3200 Euro per month. While average government’s worker only paid for 2000-3000 Euro per month.

“It will also require a lot of work, because even the Germans dogs don’t go to the toilet at the same time,” said Kloeckner.

While BSR and dog owners pointing fingers at one another, Berliners still have to face the problem every day. Kirsten Freimann, a young Berliner has to pay 300 Euro a month for her apartement and in addition she has to pay extra 100 Euro for service, include the street cleaning.

“The street cleaning is invisible,” she said with a sigh. Living in the small streets, put her in the middle of dog muck problems. BSR has the policy to clean the big street everyday, and only cleaning the parks and small streets once a week. Although those places are more favoriteable for the owners to walk their dogs.

“You can see how terrible the street is, “ said Freimann. Personally, she think it’s the owners who has the responsibility to clean the dog’s muck. Though, Freimann also realize lack of law enforcement also contribute to the problems. According to city law of Berlin, the dog owner has to clean their dog muck, just to avoid from getting 30 Euro fine.

“But nobody ever get the fine, so nobody obey the law,” said Freimann.

It’s quite surprising to see how a well manage city like Berlin facing problem with their dogs muck. In other part of the world, Beijing, a city of 15 millions people with at least 550 thousands dogs seems to tackle the problem quite well.

“People will see you with a very bad look, if you don’t pick up your dog’s poo out of the streets,” said Jane Feng, a young journalist from Beijing. For a Chinesse, getting a sinical look might be a big problems. Though Berlin has different situation. Most Berliners simply doesn’t care about what others think regarding their dogs behavior.

BSR themselves does acknowledge this situation. But the monopoly Berlin household waste management pay lack attention on it, and prefer to continue their almost one decades doggy muck campaign.

Thomas Kloeckner, spokeperson of BSR said, “It’s not only about technical things, but more about changing the mind setting of the people.” He also refuses to ask Berlin city council to strengthen the law enforcement of 30 Euro dog muck fine.

“It’s not our job,” he said.

It seems the Berliners have to face the weird campaign and their dogs muck problem much more longer.

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Supervised by Kierran Cooke, published in Jurnal Nasional page international