Dogs Power Dog Parks with Methane Generator The Park Spark is a generator that Matthew Mazzotta created to burn dog waste. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the first Park Spark lit up a dog park at night, reducing its reliance on the grid. The homestead and history savvy of us may vaguely remember reading that people in need of fuel sometimes burnt manure. Manure contains a lot of methane, which is not only a more harmful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but it’s going to waste because too many of us are afraid of cooties. Power generation that burns things is usually not ideal because it uses non-renewable resources and creates carbon, but this case is different: turning methane into carbon is actually a good thing, and methane is certainly renewable. There are several manure-burning generators out there, but the Park Spark is very accessible. Anybody who has picked up after their dog may use one. Dog poo often sits sealed in plastic bags in landfills for as long as the bag lasts, when they could at least be decomposing. A generator is a better place to throw that bag, even a biodegradable bag. More on the Park Spark at Inhabitat Posted by → December 04, 2014 at 3:50 PM under News and Events
