Biodegradable doggy doody bags

I learned about cleaning up dog poo the hard way…

In preparation for an imminently arriving puppy, I began taking my mom’s spoiled rotten, house dogs out on walks. Terribly out of shape, and ornery at having their nap schedule interrupted, they were hard at first to get under control.

Once they settled down enough to take notice of the new smells and sights around them however, their inner canine natures took over and their tails started wagging as they both wore matching open-mouthed, tongue-lolling doggy grins. As they pranced along, nature again took its course, and they both intermittently relieved themselves. Prepared with an empty plastic shopping bag (at least the evil plastic bag was going to get some re-use), I picked up their still-warm feces with a grimace. Since my parents live in a woody, posh neighborhood, there are no street or community trashcans out and about. I held onto the bag of poo for the remainder of the walk, and since there was really no other choice—threw the bag into the garbage cans in the garage.

This happened on a Monday. Trash is collected on Friday. The following 4 days seemed like the hottest of the summer. That bag of poo sat in the garbage can, baking, for four days. Every time the garage door was opened, a warm burst of sewer assaulted our nostrils, and the odor was maliciously infiltrating the house through the garage door that connects to the laundry room, and into the cars that were innocently parked inside the garage. My parents didn’t know about the poop, and blamed the smell on chicken bones… afraid for the reaction my admission would create, I kept silent but deep-down felt as bad as the garage smelled. (Sorry Mom.)

Although I felt horribly guilty about using biological warfare against my loved ones, I felt torn. What else was I supposed to do? Couldn’t leave the poop, although at the time I rationalized that would be the most logical route to go—poop is biodegradable, and would dispose of itself without creating any additional waste. A plastic shopping bag was the best container I could find at the time, and I couldn’t just leave the bag filled with poop as litter on the ground? (Feel like that would totally defeat the entire purpose of “picking up after your dog”?) In retrospect, I guess I could have dumped out the bag’s contents into the toilet, and flushed the poop away. (A bag with poop remnants would have to smell better than a bag filled to capacity?) My poor family and I dealt with the results of my poopy decision for an entire week, and I learned my lesson: use bags that are meant for doggy doody duty, with green bonus points for using biodegradable versions.

After just doing some cursory research, I found a whole slew of reasons why dog poop is actually bad for the environment (who knew??) which makes it more comprehensible why cleaning it up is so imperative as to have been made a law. For instance, I think smelling dog poop is bad enough—the idea of drinking it is absolutely revolting. And yet, apparently this is happening as 20-30% of all pollutants in waterways are attributed to dog waste. Overall, it is believed dog waste is third or fourth on the list of contributors to bacteria in contaminated waters due to rainwater run-off, dogs pooping near watersheds and beaches. Ewww! (It is estimated that dog owners do not collect over 4 million tons of dog waste annually.)


If the poop has to be cleaned up (and it does,) plastic bags are a bad choice, as “plastics are the fourth highest generated waste in the U.S., originate from petroleum which is non-renewable, do not biodegrade, and take thousands of years to break down.”


Taking all of this into consideration, obviously biodegradable poopy bags are the way to go (added incentive—they even have cute little dispensers to make these look like a cute dog-walking accessory! Isn't it so cute-- the bag looks like poop coming out of the dog's behind! My goodness!) My fact source, the eloquently, subtly named PoopBags.com, explains why biodegradable bags (coincidentally, theirs in particular) are the way to go: if the bags are ASTM D6400 certified, it means the materials they use are fully tested to ensure that it will degrade at a similar rate to a freaking apple! They are made from a combination of corn and other renewable products, and biodegrade naturally when exposed to the earth’s elements and micro-organisms in the soil. Also—because of the way the bags are made, they “breathe,” which ironically makes it easier for us to do the same. The construction of the bag allows heat and moisture to escape, which reduces bacteria build-up and retards odor. (Yay!)

Since the stork has since delivered my fur baby, and I daily bear witness to how much poop comes out of such a tiny thing—this product is something I am definitely going to stock up on. Picking up poop is never going to be an enjoyable experience, but at least using biodegradable bags will make me feel like I am doing the world a good deed. (Like, 5 good deeds a day.) Since all dogs go to heaven, I hope this portends favorably for the dog's owner too?




Also, there’s a cute and inspiring background story behind PoopBags.com, and despite the current economic gloom, the American dream is alive and well. (The creator’s Vice President is Miss Cinnamon May… his dog.):

PoopBags.com! When you typed some keywords into your search engine of choice, you may have laughed when you saw the link for www.poopbags.com come up. Well, when I was walking my dog in the summer of 2003, I laughed too when I first thought about the idea...As a single guy, living in Chicago's Lincoln Park, I would always run out of the plastic grocery bags I used to pick up May's poop. As a backup, I'd use the ones from the newspaper, sandwich bags, ask my Mom to save me bags, snag some from a friend's house – it was crazy.
Then I started thinking about all these plastic bags... I looked online and started reading more and more about plastic bags in general. How they are made, how they'll never go away in my lifetime, and then I laughed to myself and said, "What if I started a company called PoopBags.com and sold biodegradable dog poop bags for a living?" Well, I challenged myself to find out.After purchasing the URL from a company in London and testing several manufacturers, with help of my Vice President of Product Testing, Miss Cinnamon May, I chose the final product that launched PoopBags.com, Inc.

Trust me, it takes awhile to get used to saying "PoopBags.com." At first, I was a bit shy in saying it as I knew the looks and reactions I would receive. Now, I look forward to it. So does the media... We've done interviews on the radio, had several articles in newspapers across the country, been featured in magazines and more. Each year we have experienced tremendous growth, but we're just getting started. The entire World is now realizing that plastic bags are simply bad for the Earth. It takes oil to make them, they sit around for over 100 years, they harm fish and wildlife, they plug drainage sewers in cities, and the list goes on.

Well, that's the story on PoopBags.com so far. We've moved from my dining room to a small warehouse, I have two employees for whom I am very grateful. So, whether you bleed Green like me, "just need some poop bags" they might as well be or you want to help a corporate guy out of those four walls, please consider a purchase from www.poopbags.com. You'll be doing the World a bit of good, one bag at a time.Thank you for your support, we truly do appreciate it.- PC-

Paper Chasing

Granted I kind of live in a bubble, but for me, Slumdog Millionaire seemed to be the beginning of an Indian infiltration into the American culture. If you tune in to any “pop” radio channel, Bollywood remixes are being repeatedly played, Frieda Pinto-- the beautiful female lead of Slumdog-- is said to be in talks to star as the next Bond girl, and now the Indian culture has even made its way onto little ol’ Kelly Green’s blog. I love this, and am happy for the opportunity to be exposed to some new, previously unknown (for me, anyway) cultural diversity.

Since this is written, I can incorporate any special effects I want. For instance, I’m rewinding time to go back one week:

While sitting on a train going to New York City, I was killing time (see, time is my bitch in this word world) by restlessly thumbing through that week’s trashy tabloid. After having read about Rhianna’a alleged pregnancy and Jen & John latest drama, I stopped on a page of green “must have” accessories. Sure, the certified oak “iWood” iPhone cover was pretty sweet, but $110 seemed like a steep price for some pocket wood. There was a cute reusable lunch bag, but come on US Weekly (or whatever magazine it was), we are all ALREADY hip to the reusable bags! Instead of these, the item that really caught my attention was like the runt of the litter in a box full of frolicking puppies. Instead of aggressively seeking my attention, in the corner of the page there quietly sat a couple of thick, multi-colored bangles that were woven together out of paper-mached newspapers. They were unlike anything I had ever seen before, looked so unique and chic, were reasonably priced at under $30, and were such a good idea that I felt like felt like I had to share “Wellpaper’s” products with everyone I could.

After politely asking my lovely travel companion if I could rip the page out her glossy magazine, I carefully folded up the page and tucked it away in my cavernous purse, intent on further researching later.

Now, we are fast-forwarding to that Monday, when I first got a chance to Google my query. While I was really expecting links to Kitson and its ilk to pop up so I could tell you where to buy these cutie cute bracelets, I was surprised to instead first find the home page for the company, which revealed the inspiring and heart-warming history of Wellpaper and its goods. (And provides the tie-in to my India based introduction.)

Rewinding again: In 2004, an Israeli couple up and moved their family to a little town in India. She was an artist whom specialized in paper mache crafts made out of recyclable materials, and dabbled in social work. He was an accountant by trade. Once in India, they gathered groups of interested women, and taught them how to make products out of materials they had available to them (old newspapers and magazines, etc.), and make a business out of it --Wellpaper (Women's Empowerment through Local Livelihood) was thus born.

The village women that compose this organization are loving the fact that they can make their own money to better their families’ quality of living, while building close relationships with their co-workers, and establishing a sense of accomplishment and self-worth. (The site is really cute, there are bios of some of the involved women, and they share their thoughts and feelings in their own words.)

They are taught how to read and write, and are even dabbling in learning the English language. Wellpaper has seen enough success to warrant starting similar programs in 3 additional villages, and their products are being shipped all over the world. In addition to bangles, they also make lot other stuff, like baskets, coasters, earrings, hair clips, plates and key chains, and they are mostly all made out of “raw” materials, newspapers are the most common medium used, but plastic bottles, plastic bags, and old cartons are all fair game as well.

Obviously, buying these products is beneficial in a multitude of ways... and as cute as they are, the least of all being the fact that the Wellpaper accessories can benefit your outfit. The whole Wellpaper concept really appealed to me, because the hand-made, one-of-a-kind products that these women are making are proof positive of the good that can be accomplished by opening your mind and heart to those different than yourself. With all of the bad things people are doing to each other across the world, it's refreshing and invigorating to hear about such selflessness that is happening right NOW.

Trying not to be so trashy...

Living in a household of 7 people, we create an astonishing and disgusting amount of garbage. (Much more on this later, as I'm sure you're all dying to hear more about this topic.)

However, it pains me- like it seriously upsets my stomach a little bit, to see the quantity and range of stuff that gets thrown out.

So, in my free time I have recently been trying to think of ways to cut down on this. (And, a plus of this is that usually the more use you can get out of something you already own, the less you have to buy, and voila- saved money! Green prevails all over the place!)

My trashy thought at the moment: Cereal Boxes

On one hand, I consider myself thrifty and environmentally friendly in that I mix up a bunch of cereals to create my own daily customized trail mix, and then reuse the same Ziploc bag everyday to house this delicious mix until the bag breaks. I tell myself- you're eating healthy, you're saving money, and you're getting exactly what you want. And, you're saving at least one Ziploc bag a day from spending an eternity rotting away buried in a landfill.

On the other hand, (and the part that I don't like to think about) 7 empty cereal boxes every couple of weeks or so still equals hella' lot of trash that I am solely responsible for!

So, ok- the ceral box itself can be broken down and recycled. And, they can make wonders these days out of reused cardboard, so, that makes me feel a little better.*

But, oh, the plastic bag liners...

Those suckers take hundreds and hundreds of years to disintegrate, if ever. (I know, horrifying: http://www.greenclubinc.com/faqs.html) Which leaves me pondering, what, oh what, to do with these things beyond their intended purpose?

Solutions that come to mind easily:

1. Have a dog? Live in an area where you are required to clean up after it? Empty cereal box liners would work perfectly for picking up your puppy's waste- just stockpile the cereal liners somewhere, and then you could cut down on the other types of bags that you would have used for this.

2. .....?

Very disappointing list, I know. I usually pride myself on being able to come up with tons and tons of (albeit, random) ideas for anything. And for this, I am struggling. Majorly. What else can you do with a largish plastic bag that is not necessarily 100% clean on the inside?

(*Bonus points to the cause if you buy General Mill's cereal and clip those "Box Tops" to help education programs across the country.)