A civic group in Vienna, Austria, gathered 157,000 signatures on petitions in May and presented them to city officials to encourage a government program toward cleaner streets.

Under the proposal, the government would assign the populace the task of counting and mapping dog droppings as a first step to greater penalties for owners who fail to clean up after their mutts. Critics were pessimistic that citizens wanted to count and map dog droppings.

Can you imagine being asked to volunteer to count poop and map where you found it? There didn’t seem to be a requirement to also clean it up. Why don’t they investigate the costs of keeping the street cleans in other cities that are doing it well or create by-laws that would make pet owners who don’t clean up their pets mess fund the cities coffers in fines?