The Tel Aviv municipality is launching an innovative new program to clean up after the city's more than 40,000 dogs. "kakanoas" (poop-cycles) are motorcycles with special tanks attached to suck up dog feces that will begin patrolling the city, the municipality announced on Wednesday.
The motorcycles will be made in Israel and will have tanks that can hold up to 20 liters. They will drive paths calculated according to requests of sanitation workers and complaints filed by residents.
"One of the main complaints residents have is dog feces that is not picked up by owners," said the municipality's manager of sanitation and waste disposal Idan Gavish. "We are pleased to run the kakanoa, which is an additional innovative move in out fight against this smelly phenomenon."
An average of 500 kg. of dog poop is left uncollected by dog owners every month, according to the municipality.
The kakanoa is the municipality's latest tool to fight the trend of owners not cleaning up after their dogs, which the municipality says has only gotten worse in 2020. The number of reports of owners failing to pick up after pets and the negative impact felt by residents both increased last year.
Other actions taken by the municipality include handing out fines to owners caught not cleaning up, stands with baggies placed in parks and gardens and a new law that enables the city to test dog excrement to track down owners based on DNA.