Doggy Poop Bags for Human Hikers Could Soon Be Available on Colorado Trails

In Colorado, the word “fourteener” refers to any mountain peak with an elevation of at least 14,000 feet. For years, fourteeners have all suffered from a similar problem: when people hike and climb these mountains, they leave their shit behind. And I don’t just mean their garbage but also their literal human shit. One Colorado-based company called PACT Outdoors is trying to revolutionize the way hikers poop in pristine wilderness.

PACT wants hikers to poop in bags. Specifically, WAG Bags. WAG stands for Waste Alleviating Gel. Simply put, they’re bags that you can take a shit in containing a gel that renders human waste noninfectious.

You’re not supposed to poop just anywhere and leave it there when you’re out in nature. Your poop can contaminate local water supplies and ecosystems. That’s why WAG Bags are often used by conscientious outdoorsy people—they’re trying to properly dispose of their poop.

The problem is, not every hiker struck with the urge to shit on the trail has a WAG Bag on them or is even aware of WAG Bags at all. PACT wants to eliminate that problem by installing little WAG Bag stations along hiking trails to encourage people to clean up after themselves. They installed one such station on Mount Elbert and collected data on its usage for 20 days.

It was long assumed that people didn’t want to pack up their poops. Their little survey said otherwise. They found that 70 percent of the people they spoke to pooped in the wild. Of that percentage, 43% used a WAG Bag. This percentage was high enough to convince them that hikers absolutely would collect their poop in a bag like they do for their own dogs to keep the wilderness pristine, all you’ve got to do is provide it for them, also very much like doggy poop bags.