Group bottles up a poo problem
A community group have placed recycled plastic poop bag holders near parks and beaches across Sunderland and South Tyneside after residents complained of dog poo being left in beauty spots.
A Fulwell, Roker, Seaburn and Whitburn community group have launched a new project to help deal with dog poo being left on beaches and in parks across the region following complaints from residents.
The six admins of the group have placed recycled plastic poop bag holders in parts of Sunderland and South Tyneside in a bid to tackle the problem of dog mess in public places.
Organisers are hopeful that dog walkers who have forgotten bags will take advantage of the accessible holders instead of leaving their dog mess behind.
The idea has been set up as part of the group’s #NoSh1t campaign.
It is hoped that members of the community will replenish the homemade holders by adding spare poop bags during dog walks.
Natalie Davison, one of
the group admins said: “We noticed a lot of negative posts regarding dog mess not being picked up and we thought about how we could help and change something negative into something positive.
"We thought we are going to struggle to fix the problem but we can at least try and help.”
The nine poop bag holders in total are spread across Roker, Seaburn and Whitburn near entrances to parks and along the seafront for dog walkers to use.
Natalie added: “Hopefully it will encourage dog walkers to take more responsibility and we’ve had such positive comments
about the campaign.
"We’ve even had people from outside the North East wanting to get involved to set them up where there are problems elsewhere.”
The group say they will provide their ‘Did you forget your bag?’ stickers to anyone who wishes to create their own poop bag holders for their local areas.
Ms Davison says to keep the cycle going, they are hoping conciseness dog walkers will pop a spare bag into one of the holders while out walking to help keep them replenished.
You can find more information on the campaign and keep up to date with other projects on Facebook.