When dog waste goes into landfill, it releases methane into the atmosphere. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is approximately 23 times more harmful than carbon dioxide.

When it’s burned in the presence of oxygen, it separates into carbon dioxide and water vapor, so businesses can actually earn carbon credits from burning off excess methane.

Here is an article on a park in Massachusetts where they are using methane created from dog poop for a gas burning lamppost (http://parksparkproject.com/home.html).

Eventually the methane could be used to reduce overall energy consumption by heating buildings/water etc, but in the mean time it would be pretty cool to have the Olympic Flame burning and actually helping the environment!