Doggie do-do

Triathlon at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games gives River Seine its chance to shine a spotlight on important environmental issues

I think that this is a load of doggie-do-do, and here’s why:-

For decades visitors to Paris, including well-heeled and well-soled tourists, have been appalled by dog-shit on the sidewalks.

Between 1978 and 1980 I lived and worked based in Paris, and I was fascinated by the twice-daily hosing down of sidewalks, by Algerians I later learned. The hoses were connected to a spigot at kerb-side, and the worker walked downhill from the spigot, hosing rubbish sideways into the gutter. I say “rubbish”, but in truth the papers blew into the gutter anyway; only the dog shit was there to be hosed.

And hosed it was, off the sidewalk into the gutter, where it began is short journey to the bottom of the hill, where it disappeared out of sight through a grating into the sewer system.

The worker trudged back up hill (dragging a long rubber hose full of water, no doubt, but who cares? The guy was an Algerian, immigrant, yes? So he should be happy hat he had a job. Hosing dog shit from the dogs which were taken to dump on the sidewalk each morning (and evening) by people rich enough to live in apartments inside Paris city.

At the top of the hill the Algerians switched the water flow by moving a chunk of rolled-up carpet to divert water down the gutter on the other side of the hill (well, you will need a good current to wash the solids to the grating at the foot of the hill, right) and then the second side of the hill sidewalk could be cleared of dog-shit.

Move on to the next chunk of your assigned beat, dragging your hose behind you. You can work out the work involved by counting the number of times a worker would have to climb a hill after descending it, then climbing again to do the other side, then climbing again to disconnect the hose.

I remember especially being warned by a sudden grasp at my sleeve as a companion warned “Watch out!” (in French “Attention!”) as I was about to step into a steaming pile (in wintertime) of a crunchy chunk (in the heat of summer). I learned to do the same with my friends, and with lost tourists who needed a guide to the nearest metro station.

Thirty-five years later I was back in Paris and spent two weeks walking through Paris, mainly to a Transilien station, but walking none-the-less on the sidewalks and was surprised to find:-

(1) An absence of dog shit on the sidewalks

(2) Signage to the French equivalent of “Stoop and Scoop”, by then popular in Toronto

(3) The presence of battery powered four wheel trolleys with a self-contained supply of water, powerful hose jets, and an operator.

The operator jetted debris out of every doorway, from beneath every stoop, and the water ran by itself (no need to prime the gutter with its own stream) to the grating and hence out of site.

The big difference was the day-long absence of doggie-do-do on the sidewalks, Paris was growing up. It was no longer acceptable to use the pedestrian sidewalk and a shit-hole.

Now you may be wondering what happened to the dog shit after it fell down the grating into the sewer. Easy. The sewers emptied into The River Seine. ¿Comprendo?

Yes, The poor Seine collected all the dog-shit of Paris, an area of one hundred square kilometres, and sent it downstream.

So nobody swam in the river. Bad news for Nanterre, Poissy , Mantes La Jolie and the rest of them.

I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine the effectiveness of “a 50,000 cubic metre-runoff tank to handle excess flow during periods of rain.” To help you, I figure that the area of Paris being 100 Km-squared, that makes 100,000,000 square metres. 50,000 cubic metres is about 2,000 days of rainfall of one metre. At 365 days a year I think that means we could fill that 50,000 tank five times a day. But what do I know?

I am encouraged by “the building of a super sewer to the south of the city”, mainly because I have not discussed human-do-do here, but it makes you wonder where it all goes.

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