San Francisco's Puppy Problem

Puppy dog
M. Lorenz Photography | Flickr | Getty Images

Subscribing to newspapers digitally saves trees, cuts down on inky fingers, and is generally kinder to Mother Earth. No city in America is more concerned with going green than San Francisco.

Unfortunately, Animal Control officials say that's a bunch of dog...poo.

Local animal shelters have long relied on donations of old newspapers to line floors as they potty train puppies, but there aren't enough physical newspapers around anymore to do the job.

Coming to the rescue is the San Francisco Library, which will now donate its old newspapers to the shelters.

At least as long as there are libraries, which may be the next thing to go after newspapers.

(Read More: Why Millionaires Prefer Dogs Over Cats)

"The library had been recycling all of the roughly 2,000 newspapers it went through every month," library tech Stephen Lee told the San Francisco Chronicle, in a story you can read online without the need of an actual newspaper. "We just tossed them...We had no other use for them," Lee said.

So you had no use for them, but you still keep receiving them. I assume there are several computer terminals inside the library where one can read the newspapers online...

(Read More: Why Millionaires Prefer Dogs Over Cats)

Still, no computer terminal is going to help clean up after a puppy. "Agency supervisor Eric Zuercher says the arrangement with the library has solved a big problem," reports the Sacrament Bee, "noting puppies are poop machines." Yellow journalism takes on a whole new meaning.

—By CNBC's Jane Wells; Follow her on Twitter: @janewells