Berlin's Latest Scoop: Harnessing the Power of Dog Poop
Forget about Russian gas, German coal or controversial nuclear power plants. The energy source of the future is cheap and available everywhere on the streets of Berlin. You may have even had to scrape it off your shoes.
In Berlin, dog poop happens. Literally, all over the place. According to Berlin sanitary officials, 55 tons of doggie mess is generated on the streets of the city every day. And most of it is left unattended -- for other canines' sniffing pleasure, for children to play hopscotch around, or for senior citizens to hold their passionate diatribes against.
The German capital is an extremely dog-friendly city. Dogs attend gallery openings, jazz concerts, Sunday brunches and baby showers. But Berlin's dog owners are mostly of the let-somebody-else-scoop-the-poop persuasion. It's part of the laissez-faire attitude that Berliners are known for. One needs to have some sense of history. What's a little poo here or there in a city that had the iron curtain run through its very heart?
Yet anybody who ever walked down Wrangelstrasse in Berlin's multiethnic Kreuzberg district, or along Kastanienallee in the hipster paradise known as Prenzlauer Berg, is more likely to step into a pile of dog doo than run into somebody who would wish them a nice day.
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