Doggie Dunnies: Reducing waste and cultivating community

The solution to an issue you never knew your city had! Doggie Dunnies are public bins with a system that separates compostable dog-waste bags from regular rubbish, allowing the bags to be collected for recycling and reducing the amount of organic waste sent to landfill.

Responding to requests from municipal shires for an effective dog-waste separation system, Woodlands Distributors' director Andrew Wynne established Doggie Dunnies in 2017. After years of product development and field trials, production of the innovative dog-waste management system began in early 2019. Today, Doggie Dunnies are used in four states across Australia and have been implemented widely across Australian cities.

The Doggie Dunnie waste bin station is designed to stop cross-contamination from general public waste and used compostable dog-waste bags. The patented lid design encourages users to place compostable dog-waste bags in a separate bin section. This dog-waste system has been shown to eliminate up to 96% of general waste contamination, ensuring that the separated dog-waste can be recycled. Recycling used dog-waste bags can complement a city's green waste recovery programs and FOGO (Food Organics Garden Organics) schemes.

The City of Melville in Perth has implemented Doggie Dunnies on a large commercial scale and uses the dog-waste system as part of its green waste program. Andrew said, "There are eight Doggie Dunnie units in the City of Melville, each collecting an average of 50kg of dog waste per week. This is waste that can now be recycled separately instead of contributing to landfill."  In 2021 Doggie Dunnies and the City of Melville were jointly nominated for a National Waste Award for contributions to the City's FOGO program.

Doggie Dunnies has a continued interest in supporting local communities, from encouraging Australian cities to use their bins as part of their green waste programs to the manufacturing process itself.

"We choose to manufacture in Australia to create local jobs, maintain a high quality of product, and keep control of our intellectual property. It also allows us to immediately respond to our customer's needs and provide customised options from our factory," Andrew said.

"We decided to use the Australian Made logo because it is instantly recognised by people. The logo acts as an indicator of high levels of quality and shows that we are supporting Australian jobs and industry, which is more important now than ever before. We have actually had customers thank us for making our products here in Australia, which is amazing!"

Doggie Dunnies are manufactured in Western Australia and Queensland, and are laser cut from Australian-made steel. Andrew notes that manufacturing in Australia is important, not only for job creation but also for the growth of skills and the industry as a whole. "Making products here in Australia promotes innovation and reinvestment in better practice and design. We encourage businesses to give it a go. For us, we have over eight separate businesses that are benefitting from Australian Made production here at Doggie Dunnies."

Andrew is thankful for engaged dog owners' acceptance and adoption of Doggie Dunnies across Australia. "Australia now has one of the highest rates of dog ownership in the world," Andrew Wynne said. "This has only increased the demand for effective, sustainable, long-term solutions to ever-increasing dog waste. We're very proud that our product can make a genuine difference to the community."

To learn more about Doggie Dunnies and their Australian Made product, visit www.doggiedunnies.com.au.