Jennifer Donaldson thought nothing of throwing her dog poop bag in a neighbour’s trash bin until a car nearly ran her over.
She had just tossed the bag when a driver careened towards her and jumped the curb, window down and screaming. “Get the poo out of my bin!” the woman yelled. “Don’t ever do that again!”
“That was,” Donaldson said, “the first, last and only time I ever threw a bag into somebody’s bin.”
And for Donaldson, who has owned and run the Toronto dog walking service Citizen Canine since 2008, it was an introduction into the lively debate around other people’s trash. It is more than simply a legalistic question — it is a moralistic and ethical one, one that gets neighbourhood Facebook groups up in arms and non-dog owners holding their noses. But no one, it seems, is holding their tongues.
The Star asked the question in a Beaches neighbourhood group. Nearly 50 people commented in less than 24 hours.
“This should have a trigger warning,” one resident joked.
The city says it’s simple: Don’t do it
Annette Synowiec, Toronto’s director of collections and litter operations, understands the temptation. It might seem better than littering or, worse yet, leaving the remnants of your dog’s last bowl of kibble on the lawn three doors down. But her advice is clear: Don’t do it.
In fact, throwing private trash in someone else’s bin without their consent is against city bylaws. That includes dog waste — not that it’s likely to result in the maximum $10,000 first-conviction fine.
“Enforcement of these bylaws are rarely required,” the city said in an email, “and only on a complaint-based response.”
For Synowiec, it’s also a matter of getting the value you deserve from municipal taxes.
“You have a certain sized garbage bin and you pay for that service, right?” Synowiec said. “Technically, you’re kind of using that other person’s capacity.”
Some owners pooh-pooh the bylaws
But the world is not a perfect place, and many of Toronto’s bylaws go unheeded. Throwing a Frisbee is outlawed in some city parks, but Coun. Josh Matlow does it anyways, he previously admitted to the Star. (“Guilty as charged,” he said.) Snowball fights require permits, but that’s never stopped Erika Nikolai, executive director of the Park People advocacy group.
And keep your eyes peeled for those hooligans handing out helium balloons in Toronto’s public squares, because there’s a bylaw against that, too.
Likewise, the stern wording of section 548-4(B)(2) of Toronto’s municipal code has done little to prevent four-year-old Max’s feces from ending up in your green bin — which, Synowiec says, is where dog poo bags belong (yes, even plastic ones) — or worse yet, your trash.
“I had a leaf bag on the sidewalk and a dog owner left a poop bag on top,” one Facebook user responded to the Star. “By the end of the day, there were eight more … It drives me crazy.”
Some say trash is trash, but others complain of the smell in the summer heat and the mess of a split bag at the bottom of the bin. Jen Reeder, a freelance journalist and former president of the Dog Writers Association of America, found this out when she wrote a pet advice column a few years ago on this very subject.
“The politics of poop are intense,” said Reeder, who is based in Denver, Colo. and owns a Yorkshire Terrier mix named Tux. “They think it’s gross and they think it’s rude — especially people who don’t have pets.”
The exceptions to the rule
Reeder now throws her poop bags in public bins or simply carries them home. It’s a “common courtesy,” she said, to make neighbours happy.
For some, there are times when exceptions can be made. The rules for those occasions, according to Nicola Smith, the owner of Toronto dog walking service We Wag Toronto, go something like this.
It should be garbage day, so the bag won’t fester for long. The garbage should already be out at the curb, so you aren’t stepping on someone’s property. And the bin should still be full, ideally only minutes or hours away from being picked up, so there’s no chance the bag will get stuck at the bottom.
And then — only then — will Smith toss a poop bag on top.
“I generally don’t like to have people mad at me,” she chuckled.
Others are resolute: Your trash belongs in your bin and no one else’s. Nearly getting hit by a car was enough to convince Donaldson of that.
“I’ll put it in my car, then find a city bin,” Donaldson said, “before I do it again.”
