Taiwan rewards picking up dog droppings

A city in central Taiwan is offering shopping vouchers to volunteer dog waste collectors in a bid to clean up a perennial problem caused by the large number of stray animals island-wide.

City officials in Taichung, which has a population of one million, said on Wednesday the environmental protection bureau would give vouchers worth 100 Taiwan dollars ($3) for every kilo of dog poo collected. In areas of the city especially affected, the reward will be for every half-kilo.



"By means of offering rewards, the bureau hopes to goad the public into spontaneous clean-up efforts that protect the environment," the city council said on its website.

The 130,000 Taiwan dollar reward program should also raise public awareness of the main cause of the problem - people who no longer want their pet dogs and who release them onto the streets, said Wang Wen-ge, a project manager with the bureau. The initiative will start next week and vouchers can be redeemed from a local chain store.