Why we switched from plastic to plant-based

It didn't hit us all at once. It hit us one trash bag at a time.

When we were fostering kittens and caring for our three senior dogs, our daily routine included a lot of clean-up. Cat waste in the morning, dog waste on every walk, and a small mountain of plastic bags and liners piling up by the end of each week. One afternoon, taking out yet another bag stuffed with smaller bags, we finally asked the question out loud: where does all of this actually go?

The scale of the problem

The answer wasn't comforting. Conventional poop bags are made from petroleum-based plastic, and they're used exactly once before heading to a landfill. Multiply a couple of bags a day by one dog, by a year, by the hundreds of millions of dogs on the planet, and the number gets staggering fast. Most of that plastic will outlive all of us, sitting in the ground long after its thirty seconds of usefulness.

What bothered us most was how invisible it felt. Nobody sets out to create waste — we're all just trying to be responsible and pick up after our pets. The tool we were handed to do the right thing was quietly doing a wrong one.

So what does “plant-based” actually mean?

Once we started researching, we ran straight into a wall of confusing labels: biodegradable, compostable, oxo-degradable, bio-based. Some of them sound great and mean very little. We wanted something honest.

Bio-based means the material is made partly or largely from renewable, plant-derived sources instead of fossil fuels. It's not a marketing adjective you can slap on a box — at least not the version we chose. We went with materials that are USDA Certified Biobased, which means the bio-based content is independently tested and federally verified. No hand-waving, no “trust us.”

Our goal was simple: bags that are strong, dependable, and a more environmentally conscious choice for pet parents — with proof to back it up.

What we refused to compromise on

Here's the thing about a poop bag: if it isn't strong, none of the rest matters. A thin, “eco” bag that tears mid-walk isn't sustainable — it's just frustrating, and you'll reach for the plastic ones next time. So we spent our testing energy on the boring, essential stuff: thickness, leak resistance, and a generous size that works whether you've got a tiny pup or a giant one.

Only once the bag actually did its job did we feel good about the plant-based story on the outside of the box.

A small switch, repeated

We're not naive — changing your poop bags won't reverse climate change. But that's not really the point. The point is that a small, genuinely better choice, repeated every single day by millions of people, adds up to something real. It's one of the few everyday habits where doing the right thing takes zero extra effort once you've made the switch.

That's why we built LqdCo. Same walk, same habit, far less plastic left behind.