Waste not, burn a lot

A flame burns in a Cambridge, Mass., park powered by dog poop.

A passion burns for Canton native and artist Matthew L. Mazzotta, who with dogged pursuit, is hoping to change the way people think about energy conservation and recycling.

A light went off in his head at the park last year when he noticed all the dog poop going to, well, waste.

The Park Spark Project is a "scientific, art intervention" project funded through Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in partnership with the city of Cambridge. The Cambridge Arts Council calls it the first "public methane digester for dogs in the world."

The "Park Spark" poop converter is actually two steel, 500-gallon oil tanks connected by diagonal black piping and attached to an old gaslight-style street lantern at the Pacific Street Park.

Mr. Mazzotta, 33, graduated from MIT, Cambridge, with a master's degree in visual studies last year. The graduate of Hugh C. Williams High School is the son of Anne and Sebastian Mazzotta.

He became aware of the potential of digesters when he visited India last year as an MIT student as part of the college's Development Through Dialogue, Design & Dissemination (D-Lab) project. He said methane digesters are used in that country to cook food.

He said farms around the world and the U.S. are increasingly using animal waste as an energy source.

"This targets animals in the city," Mr. Mazzotta said. "The technology exists. I'm bringing it into a different context."

But the flame required a kick-start to get it lit. Think of it as starter dough.

"I started it on cow manure because it has the right microbes in it," Mr. Mazzotta said. "It's all dog waste now."

He first presented his idea for a dog waste digester to Cambridge's parks and recreation department and the Cambridge Arts Council. "From there I had to go to about 10 different city offices to get approval and advice on how I should move forward," he said.

The Park Spark project was built on a grant from the Council of the Arts at MIT for $4,000.

Dog owners use biodegradable packages to dispose of their pets' waste in the Park Spark Digester, which has a hand crank so people can stir the mixture inside. The digester creates a steady stream of methane gas that powers an old-fashioned street lamp in the park.

Mr. Mazzotta said that use is much better than transporting the waste to a waste facility, where it continues to create methane, a harmful greenhouse gas.

This past spring, Mr. Mazzotta developed a similar project in the Netherlands that used energy to boil water for a community teahouse. He visited the country through an art residency program.

Mr. Mazzotta was recently awarded an art commission of $90,000 to create a public art project. He gets only a percentage of the commission for the project. He said he hasn't come up with an idea yet, but he will be working with the city and the Cambridge Arts Council again.

Cambridge Fire Chief Gerry Reardon had questions about Park Spark, including whether vandalism or poor design could cause the tank's insides to spill out and how the methane would be safely contained and vented. But Park Spark's sturdy build and safety features persuaded the Fire Department to give its approval, the fire chief said.

"We try to stay progressive here," Mr. Reardon said.

Dog owner Louisa Solano, 68, said she loves Park Spark, though she thought it was "just a wonderful piece of sculpture, you know, modern art" when she first saw it.

The dog-poop converter's colors, symmetry and clean lines are intentional, but Mr. Mazzotta said his greater artistic purpose is to get people thinking differently about what's around them, including seeing waste as a resource and how to best use the free power it produces.

Dog owner Lindsey Leason, a 29-year-old Harvard student, said she was all for seeing poop in a new light as she watched her two dogs play at the park.

"Since I have to pick up dog poop a lot, I think I'd rather have it be useful," she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.