From The New York Shitty Inbox: A Very Special Request

As you can probably imagine I receive a number of very interesting requests in my inbox. Methinks this one (which arrived this morning) may very well take the cake. It comes a graduate student no less. He/she writes:

My name is (excised) and I’m a grad student at the Pratt Institute (Environmental Management Systems) enrolled in a “Solid Waste Management” class. Our coursework involves creating a “zero waste” plan for McCarren Park. As an initial step we’re attempting to inventory and classify sources of waste in the park, and one of those sources is of course doggy poo. I’m working with my colleague (excised), who is copied on this email.

We’d like to come up with an estimate how much volume of dog poo we’re dealing with. Do you have any sense of how many “hits” this dog park gets on an average day? Do know someone who might have any helpful stats on this?

Thanks in advance for any info you might be willing to share.

Yes this site was initially premised on the dog shit problem on my community. But— in this is a big but— over the (almost) four years I have operated New York Shitty, its subject matter has expanded tremendously. I rarely feature dog doo on this site anymore (with the occasional exception of charmers like the one gracing the beginning of this post which I recently found on Berry Street. The hearts are a nice touch.). I am simply too busy. What’s more, I have better things to do than count turds. Especially in sub-freezing weather.

Nonetheless, I want to be helpful. I too was a graduate student once. Granted, I never had to aggregate turds— but I sculpted quite a few. A number of them were quite convincing. To this end I have forwarded this person’s request to a few folks I suspect will be in the know. I would also like input from you, my readers. How much dog shit do you think is in McCarren Park on any given day? You can tender your estimate via comments or email at: missheather (at) thatgreenpointblog (dot) com. I will forward your responses.

I thank you in advance for your immediate attention to this matter.

Miss Heather

Comments

3 Comments on From The New York Shitty Inbox: A Very Special Request

  1. SpillConspirator on Fri, 29th Jan 2010 5:18 pm
  2. The students could make it a community challenge (like guessing the amount of gumballs in a jar). They’ll need a prize and a few dedicated dog poo watchdogs (no pun intended).

  3. missheather on Fri, 29th Jan 2010 5:22 pm
  4. Crap counters! Could we get paid $14.25 an hour just like census workers?

  5. mommy on Mon, 1st Feb 2010 10:17 am
  6. Here’s a link with some comments on this subject:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/02/magazine/02freak.html

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