Our Salty Award-Winning Dog Poop Bags That Rethought Pet Waste
New Zealand innovation designed to go beyond simply replacing plastic.
When we developed Salt Bags dog poop bags, we wanted to rethink one of those everyday plastic products that most of us use without really considering where it ends up.
The result was New Zealand’s first certified home-compostable dog waste bag — and an award-winning packaging system recognised at the 2021 Australian Good Design Awards.
But the innovation wasn't simply about making a compostable bag. It was about helping people understand what to do with it.
We put the solution on every bag
One of the biggest challenges with alternative materials is end-of-life. Calling something “compostable” doesn't automatically mean people know where or how it should be composted.
So we used the bag itself as an education platform.
Every Salt Bags dog waste bag was printed with information explaining what it was made from, its certification and simple infographics showing dog owners how to create their own dedicated dog-waste composter at home.
Importantly, we explained that pet waste should be composted separately from the household compost used for growing food.
Instead of simply selling another product, we wanted to give people the knowledge and tools to create a better system for managing their pet waste.
Designed as a complete system
The thinking extended across the entire product and packaging.
The bags were made from home-compostable bioplastic, printed with plant-based inks and packaged in FSC cardboard. The packaging and product were designed around a clear end-of-life pathway rather than simply replacing conventional petrochemical plastic with another material.
We also deliberately challenged what an environmental product was supposed to look like.
Bright colours, patterns and contemporary branding helped Salt Bags stand apart from the traditional brown-and-green language of the “eco” aisle.
Sustainable didn't have to look sustainable. It just had to be better designed.
Recognised by the Australian Good Design Awards
In 2021, the Salt Bags Dog Waste Bags were recognised by the Australian Good Design Awards in Communication Design – Print and Packaging.
The award recognised the thinking behind the entire system — material choice, packaging, communication, consumer education and end-of-life.
For us, that's what good sustainable design should do. It shouldn't simply give people a different product to buy.
It should give them a better way to do things.
Own Your Impact
Salt Bags was built around a simple idea: Own Your Impact.
Our dog waste bags demonstrated that philosophy at its most everyday level — taking something as ordinary as picking up after your dog and asking how we could redesign the material, the information and the system around it.
Better materials. Better education. Better end-of-life systems.
That little bag became much more than a dog poop bag.