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Mel Prout is a pet writer who tests hundreds of products for our best animal friends, including dog beds and pet drinking fountains.
I’ve gotten dog shit on my hands more times than I care to admit. I panicked and ran to the nearest sink, my dirty hands sticking out like a biohazard, drawing curious glances from strangers.
A poop bag that doesn’t leak, break, or fall apart is your first line of defense against this minor but extremely serious disaster. The best poop bags should be easy to open, minimize plastic waste, and not emit too much of a smell.
After collecting over a hundred poops from several puppies over the course of a month, we have found Earth Rated Dog Poop Bags to be the best option for making poop cleanup less of a hassle.
This simple and durable design stands up to everyday use and features a convenient hook to hang your used poop bag on.
This inexpensive accessory attaches to the leash and can accommodate two used poop bags without leaving too much of a bulge.
If you have a lot of poop to pick up, this hitch holds up to four full bags and is easy to install.
Earth Rated’s poop bags don’t rip or leak, hold up well on both grass and sidewalks, are easy to remove from the roll via the holes provided, and feel thicker than many bags we tested. While no bag can completely mask odor, unscented poop bags do a better job of containing odors than others.
The original Countdown Roll Up poop bag is great on a variety of surfaces, doesn’t leak even when full, and feels thicker than most bags we tested. Each bag has a number printed on it, so you know exactly how much is left. But they’re harder to remove from the roll than our favorite.
This simple and durable design stands up to everyday use and features a convenient hook to hang your used poop bag on.
The Earth Rated Poop Bag Dispenser attaches to the leash and holds a roll of bags for easy access. Made from durable plastic, it’s strong enough to withstand repeated drops and tugging. The yellow hook on the side is a convenient place to store used poop bags, so you don’t have to carry around a bunch of smelly poop bags anymore. It can be a little tricky to unscrew, though.
This inexpensive accessory attaches to the leash and can accommodate two used poop bags without leaving too much of a bulge.
If your dispenser doesn’t have a hook, you can use the SVD Dog Poop Organizer, a simple device that attaches to your leash with a Velcro strap. It’s lightweight and durable, and can hold two full poop bags at once.
If you have a lot of poop to pick up, this hitch holds up to four full bags and is easy to install.
The Wilderdog Poop Bag easily attaches to any leash and wraps around itself, so it only takes a few seconds to set up. It holds up to four full poop bags, so you won’t have to carry a bunch of poop bags all the way home empty-handed.
I’m the pet writer at Wirecutter. I test cat litter, dog beds, automatic feeders, pet cages, and hundreds of other products designed to make life easier and better with your animal best friends (and the people who care for them).
Like all Wirecutter journalists, I review and test products with complete editorial independence. I never intend my editorial suggestions to have any commercial impact. Learn more about our editorial standards.
According to Rose Seemann, co-founder of the Pet Fecal Matter Environmental Network, dogs are small (or large) poop factories, producing an average of 0.75 pounds of poop per day. That means dog breeders have to somehow dispose of 274 pounds of poop per year.
There are many ways to deal with dog poop, but leaving it on the ground is the worst option, even if it’s in your yard or wooded area. That’s because dog poop can spread pathogens and disrupt the natural balance of nutrients in the soil. “If you’re near a creek or river, you can get harmful algal blooms,” says Amber Roegner, a veterinarian and environmental toxicologist at Loyola University Chicago.
The most convenient way to dispose of dog waste is to collect it in a bag and throw it in the trash. Poop bags are portable, inexpensive, stronger than paper bags, and easy to dispose of. Think of it like baby diapers, but for dogs.
But if you just can’t bring yourself to buy a bag specifically designed for this purpose, the experts we spoke to suggest looking for alternatives at home, including newspaper bags (assuming you’re still using the paper versions), bread bags, and potato chip bags. If you have a yard, a manure scoop, shovel, or plastic jug can also help you transfer manure to the bin, but you’ll have to clean them regularly and store them somewhere between manure pickups. And they’re usually too bulky to take with you on walks.
More and more so-called compostable poop bags are hitting the market, but disposing of them isn’t as simple as throwing them in a curbside compost bin. Most municipal composting programs in the U.S. won’t accept pet waste because it may contain pathogens and traces of antiparasitic medications. Many programs won’t even accept compostable bags. “Compostable plastics are designed to look and feel like regular plastic,” said Remington Belford, an EPA spokesman. “Most recycling or composting facilities have a hard time sorting machines and operators to tell what’s compostable and what’s not.”
“Even certified home compostable bags don’t work as well as we’d like,” says Emily Bryson, an associate professor at Central Queensland University in Australia whose research focuses on composting dog waste. In her study, all the compostable bags she tested broke down into microplastics and remained in the soil. Sending them to landfill could do more harm than good. Landfills are generally inert environments, so compostable bags may not break down there. But if they fail, they could release the greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere, Bryson said.
All of this is to say that most dog owners collect their dog waste in bags. Most neighbors want their streets to be free of dog waste, too. Plus, it never hurts to have a few extra bags in a convenient location for passersby, especially if you plan on hanging a sign.
Because the poo bags are disposable, we paid close attention to their potential environmental impact when selecting the models to test. However, Demirtas noted that a product’s environmental impact cannot be generalized based on its material properties alone, and even the experts we interviewed had different opinions.
Demirtas suggests looking at “carbon footprint calculations for each product.” However, while manufacturers are happy to tout the benefits of their products, they often remain silent about their shortcomings.
Given the complexity of the raw materials, energy consumption during production, and end-of-life implications, we prioritize poo bags that contain at least some recycled plastic or bio-based materials. We also considered a paper bag and a few compostable bags, but these bags are prone to tearing and we were unable to thoroughly test most of them.
Over the course of a month, I used chair bags from more than a dozen companies, testing samples of different sizes and consistencies.
My 65-pound dog Dave generously donates money during our walks. I also pick up any dog ​​poop I come across in the neighborhood, and spent a balmy afternoon in a friend’s yard searching the garden for her dog’s poop, both old and new.
After narrowing my list down to five, I spent a few days at a nearby dog ​​park asking strangers if I could help pick up their dog poop. (Most people agreed, though, as you might expect, they were a little confused.) I heard from some very sweet participants, including Carbon, a 9-year-old pit bull who lives on a farm; Rogan, a spaniel mix who loves squirrels; and Hunter, a wacky dog ​​with David Bowie eyes.
In addition to testing the bags, I also tested eight types of hooks that can be attached to a leash to hang the bags of poop. I tested poop bags of varying sizes and weights with six of these hooks. I also use clods of dirt when real manure isn’t an option. Each hook was rated on strength, construction, ease of use, and cost.
The Earth Rated Poop Bag is easy to open, durable enough to withstand harsh conditions, and feels thicker than most bags we tested. We overlooked these bags in the previous edition of this guide, but the company has since updated the design, and the new version is superior in every way. Each roll of bags comes with a warning label if there are only three bags left, so you won’t be caught out when you run out. Plus, they’re made from 65% post-consumer recycled materials.
These are the most durable bags we’ve ever tested. Earth Rated bags never tore or leaked while picking up solids from any surface. And of all the bags we tested, they suffered the least damage after vigorous scraping on sidewalks and prickly grass, tied only with our runner-up, The Original Poop Bags. The other bags we tested tore more easily, with several nearly ripped, while the Earth Rated bag remained virtually intact.
They’re easy to open and alert you when the liquid level is low. While other bags take a few tries to open, each Earth Rated bag pops open with just a flick of the finger. The opening process was easier than any other bag we tested, rivaled only by the Only Natural Pet 100% Post-Consumer Recycled Unscented Poop Bags. Earth Rated bags are also among the easiest to separate from the roll via conveniently marked perforation lines. A yellow label will alert you when there are only three bags left in the roll, so you can prepare to replace the bag in the dispenser.
They’re thick and help contain odors. No poop bag is so durable that you forget what you’re touching, but the Earth Rated poop bag was thicker than all the others we tested, giving me confidence that the plastic dividers won’t break down with daily use. None of the bags we tested completely masked the smell of their contents, but the Earth Rated bag did a better job of eliminating odors than the others, tied only with the Gorilla Supply Dog Poop Bags.
The bags are made from 65 percent recycled plastic. Earth Rated’s formula is a blend of 65 percent recycled material and 35 percent polyethylene. Ashley Montgomery, marketing and communications specialist for Earth Rated, said the 65 percent “mostly comes from things like plastic cans and bottles that are thrown out for recycling.” The bags have been independently tested for recycled content by two third-party agencies. While these tests are part of a paid service, we see the company’s efforts as a sign of good faith. Montgomery told us that the bags “give a second life to more than 5 million pounds of plastic that would otherwise end up in landfills each year.”
It has a rolled core (but mostly recycled content). Earth Rated rolls are rolled onto a core that Montgomery says is “made of at least 88 percent recycled kraft paper.” So if you don’t recycle or can’t recycle, that’s another piece of waste.
In terms of price, they are in the mid-range. If you buy 600 bags at a time (the largest quantity available), the price per bag is about 4 cents (at the time of writing), which is slightly lower than the average price of most bags we tested (with the exception of the very expensive paper bags, which are much more expensive than average). With a minimum purchase of 60 bags, the price is just over 6 cents per bag. The cheapest bag we tested was only 2 cents per bag if you buy 1,000 at a time.
If you’re looking for a more plant-based option for picking up dog poop, the Original Poop Bags Countdown Rolls are USDA BioPreferred Certified and made from 38% bio-based materials. They stick well to both grass and sidewalks and feature a handy countdown feature so you know exactly when the poop bag roll is running low.
You can count on them. We found that only the original poop bags had descending numbers printed on all 15 bags on a roll. The numbers were blurry and crudely printed, but they worked. While this countdown isn’t nearly as exciting as Times Square on New Year’s Eve, it does let you know how many bags you have left at any given time, which is a rare sight this time of year.
These are a solid second place. The Original Poop Bag passed our scratch test, picking up poop and miso laxative with ease. They work great on grass and do a great job of picking up hard material. They did leave a few small holes when rubbed hard against the sidewalk, but the holes were fewer and smaller than most of the other bags we tested. Regardless of which bag you use, we recommend using caution when scraping liquid stains off concrete. These bags are just as good at blocking odors as the Earth Rated bags, but neither can completely block the smell of poop.
They used some plant-based materials. The bags are USDA BioPreferred certified and contain 38% bio-based materials. The feedstock is “various agricultural byproducts such as corn stover, wheat straw, sugar cane, etc. Recycling these byproducts prevents them from being thrown away, burned, or landfilled,” said Paul Cannella, the company’s founder and president. The rest of the bag is made of polyethylene. Cannella says the packaging is made of “100% paper” and is recyclable. The company is currently launching a 92% plant-based bag to replace its compostable bag line, but these were not available at the time of testing, so we were unable to evaluate their effectiveness.
Unpacking the bag can be a challenge. The original poop bag is one of the hardest to rip apart at the seams, and the new bag requires a fair amount of effort to open. These bags cost about the same as Earth Rated bags and have a core in the middle that must be thrown away or recycled.
This simple and durable design stands up to everyday use and features a convenient hook to hang your used poop bag on.
Poop bag dispensers come in all shapes and sizes, from round jars and bone-shaped containers to colorful zip-lock bags, but how you carry a roll of poop bags depends largely on your personal style. I’ve tried a few over the years, but I’ve always settled on an Earth Rated poop bag dispenser.
It’s built to last. The Earth Rated Dispenser is a sturdy can with a base that opens and snaps shut with an audible click, ensuring the bag is securely stored inside. It attaches to a leash handle or D-ring with a silicone strap for easy use. I’ve had it for over a year now, and it’s been dropped, dragged, and stepped on by people and dogs alike. While it’s looking a little worn now, it still dispenses bags as well as when I first bought it.
It serves two purposes. The Earth Rated trash can has a yellow hook on the side that you can hang a full trash bag on, insert it into the slot, and secure it with the bag’s knot. This way, you’ll have one hand free until you get home (or to the nearest public trash can).
It can be difficult to open. The twist-lock design that secures the bag inside also makes it difficult to unlock. It requires a certain amount of grip strength to use, and some reviewers complained about not being able to open the dispenser. “Opening the dispenser for the first time can be a little tricky because you have to break the seal,” says Ashley Montgomery of Earth Rated. But we found that even after breaking the seal, the dispenser still felt sticky. So if you have limited hand strength or don’t want to force the dispenser open every time you change your roll, this might not be the dispenser for you.
This inexpensive accessory attaches to the leash and can accommodate two used poop bags without leaving too much of a bulge.