Mary Allen
Air travel, coal mining, and meat consumption are notable climate killers. But would you be thinking that dogs are bad for the climate too? Researchers at the Technical University of Berlin studied this and came up with an amazing result.
A Dog as a Climate Killer?
A team of researchers from the Technical University of Berlin compiled an estimate of the dog’s life cycle throughout its life. For the calculation, they took a dog weighing 15 kilograms, living for 13 years. Based on these data, the researchers calculated the feed consumption and the amount of excrement.
Result: during its life, the dog excretes about a ton of feces and 2000 liters of urine. And this, according to the researchers, has negative consequences for the climate – because the content of phosphorus, nitrogen, and heavy metals in the excretions poison the soil and water, according to the study.
Therefore, the researchers advise all dog owners to always collect the droppings from their fur noses. The environmental impact of small plastic bags is significantly lower than the environmental impact of excreta.
Feed Plays an Important Role in Ecological Balance
Excretions make up most of a dog’s climatic sins, but food also plays a role: For balance, the researchers took into account the production, packaging, and delivery of food. All these factors also negatively affect the climate.
The researchers explain that dog meat comes from huge slaughterhouses, whose environmental impact is devastating.
In addition, packaging materials and CO2 emissions from delivery vehicles pollute the environment.
Thus, the study’s result sounds impressive: The fictional test dog is responsible for 8.2 tons of CO2 emissions over 13 years of its life.
Smaller dogs, on the other hand, are much more environmentally friendly: a 7.5 kg dog that lives for eight years emits just three tons of CO2.