I have had dogs for many years now and I have mostly avoided buying poop bags by raiding the Kroger shopping bag recycling barrel. I figure they don’t really care because recycling plastic can’t be a moneymaker, so it is just more work for them. In the sustainability pyramid, the best thing is to reduce consumption, which I have done with shopping bags by using reusable bags when I shop. Next is re-use, which I am doing with the plastic shopping bags, and last is recycle. So overall it is much better to re-use a shopping bag instead of recycling it, even if it ends up in a landfill eventually. Plus cheaper. Win-win. Still I couldn’t count on Kroger to always have bags when I needed them and I wound up returning a lot of the bags that had holes or were too big or whatever. Lately I have had a hard time getting bags and finally ran out over the weekend. So I started doing some research.
First, these bags are pretty expensive for what they are. Six dollars seems to be the going price for 6 rolls of bags at most places, sometimes even more than that. There are 20 bags on a roll, so that’s 5 cents per bag. I might use 2-4 bags a day during my two walks with two dogs. And not all bags are created equal. Some are pretty small and hard to use and hard to tie up. I wound up going to Dollar Tree and getting 4 rolls for $1 to hold me over. Their bags are a reasonable size, but incredibly thin. And of course poorly made. The first two bags on the roll were okay, but after that the next one didn’t have a bottom, it was just a sleeve. And the next one, and the one after that, and all the way through that roll until the last two bags. The next roll seemed better.
They make compostable bags that should rot over time instead of preserving the poop for eternity. However, in a landfill, I’m not sure composting is that important. And at home you aren’t supposed to compost poop because it has some really harmful bacteria in it. They also make flushable bags that will dissolve. I think they dissolve fairly quickly so they might not make it an entire 30 minute walk. Probably better for cleaning up the yard when you can dispose of them quickly. Plus what’s the point of paying extra for a flushable bag and then putting it in a public trash can along the walk? And I don’t want to bring it home if I don’t have to. But it is a great idea and probably much better for the environment.
My solution was to buy a large quantity of regular bags from Amazon. Amazon has their own brand, AmazonBasics, and they were awfully cheap, with a 30% discount if you signed up for a subscription to have the item delivered regularly. I ordered 900 bags (45 rolls) so I hope I don’t have to get these very often, but I only had to pay $8.37, so less than a penny each.Definitely better quality than the ones from Dollar Tree. Also slightly larger at 9×13 compared to 8.5×12. Amazon also includes two dispensers.
It has been almost 11 months and I have used up almost all 900 bags. Buddy Baer is quite prolific on walks, sometimes using three bags on just one walk. I ordered again because these are good bags and still not that expensive. Only 15 per roll (so 60 rolls in the box, not 45), so I usually have to carry an extra roll in my pocket since it is hard to tell when the dispenser is running out.