GERMANY: Berlin company introduces new system to clean streets of dog waste

German company has introduced a system to clean up dog faeces in Berlin on Monday (October 16) and hopes to sell it across the country and beyond. So called "Dog Service Stations" by Berlin-based "Wall AG" contain folded brown paper bags. They allow dog owners to pick up their pets' faeces without gloves -- and without having to touch it, "Which for some people seems to be a problem," Hans Wall said with a grin. His company, Wall AG, has been making "city furniture" like public toilets or bus stops for 30 years and he currently employs 560 people in seven countries, with a turnover in 2005 of 125 million Euros (156.4 million U.S. dollars). According to Wall, his company's 5,000 products are strewn across Berlin, 200 of them so called "city toilets." Wall does not charge cities for his public toilets and instead gets revenues from advertising space outside the toilets and at bus stops and newspaper kiosks his company builds. Wall is now trying to sell the concept of Dog Service Stations to Berlin city authorities after he successfully introduced them to the northern port city of Hamburg. "We already put up toilets for humans across Berlin and now we are addressing the issue of dog toilets and how to manage the problem of dog dirt. We want to ensure that dog dirt (in the streets) is something of the past," Wall said. "No one will have the excuse anymore to say 'I didn't find a bag' or 'I didn't find a trash can,' Wall added. And for those dog owners who still refuse to use his free bags, Wall brings in specially equipped electric "scooters." Wall employees on two-wheelers sporting smell-proof containers then collect dog dirt the traditional way, using -- Wall's paper bags. There is also a "freezer mobile" with a nozzle attached to shock freeze dog dirt, making it easier to be picked up. Wall says his newly developed system "can't be too expensive. Tractors with sucking devices are just too expensive." But he refuses to reveal how much the German capital, already facing serious financial difficulties, would have to pay for the Dog Service Stations. According to Wall, his company is currently in negotiations with one Berlin district. One passer-by, Martin Friedrich, liked what he saw though. "I do think that Berlin needs something like that. I think there are neighbourhoods in Berlin where there are a lot of dogs with narrow streets and I think it would be especially welcome there." PETS DOMESTICATED ANIMALS

ITN Source | October 21, 2006

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