Dog poop bags: Edmonton neighbourhood helps keep green spaces clean

In the bowels of the Wedgewood neighbourhood pathway system, you find them.

Chalk messages on sidewalks imploring dog owners to doo the right thing and clean up after their pets.

The anonymous notes on the paved walking paths that line green spaces in the southwest Edmonton neighbourhood augment the community league’s dog-waste bag program.

Wedgewood Community League President Saad Siddiqui told CTV News Edmonton the association has been maintaining and stocking bags in eight dispensers found along the pathway system, two of them new this year.

Siddiqui said the decade-old bag program, which costs $2,000 for the community league to maintain the dispensers and stock them with bags, has been “really, really successful.”

The community league’s effort is separate from the City of Edmonton’s own dog-waste dispenser efforts, which sees it maintain about 110 dispensers — which the city says are refilled weekly — at 60 city-operated off-leash areas.

Siddiqui said his community’s bag-dispenser effort is worth the investment to encourage potential poop-etrators to help keep the area clean.

“We all want to build vibrant communities, want to be able to make sure that kids can run around, play around and not step in poop, so it does make for better living outside,” he said.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Amanda Anderson