ALICANTE – Spaniards often love their dogs. Yet Spanish municipalities question the responsibility owners take for their four-legged friends. The Alicante sanitation service reports shocking figures of dog poo left on the street every day.
The evasion of responsibility by dog owners is unfortunately reflected in the streets of various cities in Spain. A medium-sized dog can easily produce about 12 kilos of feces per month. Sanctions for owners who leave the excrement on the street in Alicante can run up to €780. However, there are always people who take this risk consciously and leave the turds on the street.
Huge commitment cleaning service Alicante
Therefore, this is where the cleaning service UTE Alicante comes into play. Currently, the company has six teams that use sweepers and cleaning machines to track and clean up pet excrement from Monday to Saturday. Twice a week, eight zones, specially designed for the free recreation of pets, are additionally cleaned with high-pressure cleaners.
Shocking figures for the Spanish cleaning service
Furthermore, UTE Alicante is not only engaged in cleaning up pet feces, they also collect information about the effect of their services. During the week, the sanitation service collects 28,800 pet excrement and about 125,000 in a month. These numbers do not include the excrement that is cleaned up daily by the employees on foot.
This overwhelming figure should make Alicante residents more aware of the magnitude of the problem. Alicante is slightly above the average of Spain in terms of dog numbers. Whereas the capital Alicante has an average of 1 dog per 6.69 inhabitants, on a regional level, the ratio is even higher; 1 dog per 4.79 inhabitants.
Advice for dog owners in Alicante
Because there are so many pet owners living in Alicante and because the cleaning service comes with such shocking figures, the UTE Alicante is running information campaigns. This is to highlight the problem and to make people aware of the need to clean up their dog poo.
The cleaning service advocates owners always have bags with them to clean up the turds and a bottle of water to flush out urine on the street. Extra attention is paid to the fact that owners should try more to get the dog to urinate or defecate in the gutter or near a well instead of in the middle of the sidewalk.
