Deb Knight raises a stink with ongoing dog poo debate
TV and radio presenter Deborah Knight has stirred up an ethical debate on putting dog poo in stranger’s bins.
While chatting to journalist Chris O’Keefe on 2GB Sydney, Deb admitted that she is guilty of sneaking the waste into the bins she passes while walking her dog, Scooby. As she explained to Chris, “a bin’s a bin.”
The conversation began with Deb explaining that there aren’t as many bins on the side of the road in the city, and that she suspected it had been done to make people take their rubbish home. This led to the question that started it all, “but when you have a dog and you take your dog for a walk and you pick up their business ... is it okay to put that in someone else's bin?"
O’Keefe wasn’t so sure, pointing out that he’d seen people write on their bins that they didn’t want droppings placed in there.
"But why not?” Deb countered. “Why do you care? It's a bin, right?"
O’Keefe suggested that it could be a problem in the summer heat, particularly if the bins were situated near a window - especially a bedroom window.
"I reckon a bin's a bin,” Deb repeated, “but some people are very territorial about their bins. When I take Scooby for a walk, if there's a bin out on the nature strip that someone's put out there, I'm gonna put my droppings in it.”
O’Keefe seemed to consider this, before finally making a confession of his own, telling Deb, “in the middle of the night, when my bins are overflowing - I've got nappy bags, I've got cardboard boxes - and I am just searching the street for bins. Any real estate and our stuff's going in."
While Deb and O’Keefe managed to laugh it off, allowing that they might be revealing too much, the same couldn’t be said for the last time this debate erupted in the media.
In July 2022, news.com.au reported on one Sydney resident who penned a note to the dog walkers behind the unwanted bin additions.
“Dog owners,” it read. “Please do not put dog poo in residents’ empty bins.”
It went on to call those owners “inconsiderate”, and sparked an intense conversation between those on both sides. Some believed the bins - which technically belong to the council - were “fair game”, while others declared that they accepted the responsibility of waste disposal when they welcomed their dogs to the family. Some simply mentioned that it was, in the end, a better solution than leaving the poo on the pavement.
Images: Getty