have you ever thrown dog waste in the trash without a bag

What should I put in my green garbage cart or dumpster?Īll your trash should be bagged and placed in your green cart or dumpster. Rent a Parks Facility or Athletic Field.Business Trash, Recycling, and Compost.Consider making the switch to intentionally composting your dog’s waste after picking it up in a biodegradable plastic poop bag. The best you can do as a dog owner is to take the time and effort to properly dispose of your dog’s doo. Plastic bags are currently the most common and convenient way for pet parents to scoop the poop, but with many regions banning single-use plastic, we need to start finding greener alternatives. These alternate ways of scooping the poop include scooping and flushing your dog’s poop (check local guidelines first) or burying it five inches underground and away from vegetables if you live in a rural area. If the area you live in has dog waste composting in place, you can also make the switch from dog poop bags to an alternative like pooch paper. However, there are other environmentally friendly ways to take care of your pet’s waste if you’re willing to take the plunge. What are other environmental ways to dispose of my dog’s waste?Ĭomposting dog poop and/or bags of dog poop is the best route to go when taking care of your pet’s waste. Once you’ve found the right bags, the next-and possibly most important-step is to dispose of these bags properly via composting (plastic bags, biodegradable or not, will almost never decompose in a landfill).Ĭheck your local municipality for pet waste composting facilities or local companies that pick up pet waste. Check out Earth Rated poop Bags and Well Earth Goods poop bags for compostable bags that can go into your backyard or municipal compost. It’s important to shop around and find bags that are plant-based and certified as compostable by reputable organizations such as the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI). Unfortunately, the trend of going green allows companies to greenwash, claiming to be more environmentally friendly than they actually are. So if you’re unable to go through the composting process, it’s still a better decision to use truly biodegradable plastic dog poop bags than regular plastic bags.Įxactly which biodegradable bags you use matters. Realistically though, we all know that tossing the bag of poop is much more convenient for the average pet parent. Once you’re home, you can toss the biodegradable poop bag into the dog waste composting bin.Ĭomposting biodegradable poop bags is a great way to reduce your dog’s carbon footprint. The WoofPack features an antimicrobial lined compartment for storing bags of waste, especially when a trash bin isn’t close by. When out for your walk or hike, bag up your dog’s waste and stash the bag in a convenient and sanitary pack, such as the WoofPack, for the remainder of your walk and drive home. The way this works is like a small septic tank for your pet’s waste that you put in your yard. The easiest answer is to put them in a dog-waste-only composting bin. How do you properly dispose of biodegradable poop bags? At this point, the bag of dog poop becomes “ mummified” and actually remains just as intact as a plastic bag would. In order for these bags to break down, they need constant exposure to oxygen, which they don’t get in a landfill-they just get buried by more trash. They will not break down entirely and return to nature as some may expect when using biodegradable products.

The bag then breaks down into smaller, less manageable pieces, making it harder to recover than an intact plastic bag.īiodegradable dog poop bags are also only biodegradable under certain conditions.

However, biodegradable bags are made with an additive that promotes the breakdown of plastic. On the surface, using biodegradable bags appears to be a good alternative to plastic and, in theory, it is a good switch from plastic dog poop bags. Is it better to go with biodegradable or regular plastic poop bags?

When this waste fails to decompose it produces flammable methane that contaminates our water systems. That’s a lot of plastic bags filling up our landfills and these plastic poop bags are filled with about 10 million tons of dog waste. When tossed into the trash, a single plastic bag can take over 500 years to decompose in a landfill.

In Canada, over 5.5 million pounds of dog poop is generated by dogs each year.Īround the world over 500 million plastic poop bags are used annually.

Have you ever thrown dog waste in the trash without a bag