I often receive complaints about dogs ripping apart the garbage. Here are a few tips you may find useful.

Dogs, cats, rats, squirrels and birds do not have our civic sense or sense of propriety. If they find “attractive” food mixed with paper and plastic, they have no qualms about ripping apart the bag to get to the good part. Also, they always seem to look for food, no matter how full they are!

So, how do we human beings, with our (hopefully!) greater intelligence, tweak the environment to prevent this mess?

  1. Segregate. This keeps apart dry waste and “likely to stink” waste. This is also for the greater good. BBMP processes all wet waste at the biogas plant. If the trash is poorly segregated (or dry and wet tightly fused), it goes into the mixed pile for landfill. Mixed garbage naturally occupies more landfill, and it makes the dumping areas like Mandur/ Mavallipura/ Bellahalli (despite all the deodorizers) stink for a radius of two kilometres! We get annoyed when our garbage collector does not come for just a day; imagine the plight of the people who live in those areas — and they now get only contaminated water. 🙁 Imagine if we lived there.
  1. Many animals (rats, cats and dogs) love animal products (bones, eggs, chicken, meat, fish, milk, curd, paneer, ice cream, cream, butter and ghee). They are very unlikely to go for raw carrot tops or greens. Therefore, it is advisable not to mix any animal products with vegan waste. You may try placing all “attractive” food (i.e., attractive to dogs/ cats/ birds) in a separate open packet (in a dedicated place — the street or your rooftop), and all “unattractive” food in another bag. This way, some street dog/ crow/ rat will come by within a few minutes and polish off the “goodies”, while leaving the rest of the trash bags intact. This is also environmentally more efficient since non-vegetarian food is slower and more smelly to compost.
  2. Rinse out any food packets, boxes, cans and bottles before throwing them away. A clean packet will no longer attract rats, cats or dogs. Also, even if the garbage collector does not show up for a week, your dry waste will not stink.

Please share these tips with whoever deals with the garbage at your place, including your domestic help and workers in adjacent plots.

Of course, if you are already composting, you are likely following all the above!👍