Toaster oven used to compost dog poop

MONTREAL, July 16 (UPI) -- A man in Montreal is experimenting with a toaster oven in a bid to turn dog waste from a park into safe compost.

Jim Fares is a volunteer with a group that has been maintaining the Notre Dame de Grace dog park for four years. The group has been stumped about what to do with 2,800 pounds of excrement along the way, The Gazette newspaper reported.

"I bought a toaster oven and I heated some samples over a two- to three-week period," Fares told the newspaper. "Not only did I manage to kill the (pathogens) but also every living thing in the compost, so what I have left is a pile of dust."

His challenges are to stop short of creating useless dust and end up with viable compost. Then the next hurdle is how to do it economically on a large scale, he said.

"There's no question it can be done," Fares told The Gazette.