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Everyday swaps

Pet care: bulk food, natural toys and honest poo bags

Dog-poo bags alone can be 3 kg of plastic a year per dog, and compostable ones rarely break down in a bin; bulk food and natural toys cut the rest.

Swap out
Small pet-food packs, plastic toys and one bag per pick-up
Swap in
Bulk food, natural-material toys, fewer bags or a waste composter
Impact
4 / 5
Cost
1 / 3
Effort
2 / 3
Grams of plastic avoided per person per year
1800
Watch out for
Compostable poo bags need the heat and air of a composting site; in a general bin they go to landfill and behave like plastic. Dog waste cannot go in food-waste collection.

Buy pet food in large bags or from refill stores, choose rope, wool and natural rubber toys, and for dog waste use the thinnest bags that do the job, or a home dog-waste composter where it is allowed.

Two poo bags a day at about 5 g each is roughly 3.6 kg a year per dog; halving that with a single larger bag per walk or a composter saves around 1.8 kg. Compostable bags only help if they go to composting: University College London (UCL)'s Big Compost Experiment found most compostable items failed in home heaps, and a compostable bag in landfill behaves like any other.

The catch: dog waste must not go in food-waste collections; compostable poo bags in a general bin are no better than plastic ones.

Page updated 24 September 2026. How we check sources