Dog poop lights the way for one resourceful city

Dog poop stinks. It attacks your nostrils like an aromatic machine gun. It provides a cringe-worthy sensation when it squishes into the grooves on the bottom of your shoe. It's one of the few annoyances of owning a dog-or working with them at a veterinary practice.

But residents in Cambridge, Mass., have found a new use for dog poop: It sheds light on the town. The Park Spark Project features a publicly fed methane digester that converts dog waste into energy, which powers street lamps in the city. The digester is buried mostly underground, save for an above-ground tube and a hand-crank residents use to feed the digester and stir the mixture inside. The newly created methane is then pumped to gas-burning lampposts. Not only does the process provide a renewable source of energy, it eliminates harmful greenhouse emissions from discarded poop that ends up in waste facilities.

Click here for more information about the Park Spark Project. Looking for ways to go green in your veterinary practice? Consider these seven ideas you can take to clean up your act.