How to Dispose of Dog Waste in Taiwan: The 2026 Guide
You are standing in front of three bins with a warm bag in your hand. General waste. Recycling. Food waste. Somewhere behind you a dog is already pulling towards the next tree.
There is a correct answer. In 2026 it is not the answer most articles online will give you, because Taiwan’s waste rules changed more this year than in the previous decade — and almost nobody has updated their advice for dog owners.
Here is the current version, with the reasoning, and with the inconvenient part about our own product left in.
The short answer: general waste
Bag it, tie it, and put it in general waste — the garbage truck, or your municipality’s designated bag.
Not food waste. Not recycling. Not the toilet.
Household waste in Taiwan is primarily incinerated, and for dog waste that is currently the only compliant and hygienic route. Simple enough. But each “why not” underneath it is worth knowing, because two of them changed recently.
Why not the food waste bin — and what changed in 2026
The old reason everyone repeats is that food waste goes to pig farms, so animal waste must not contaminate it.
That reason is now largely out of date.
Under African swine fever controls, household food waste is already banned entirely from pig feed. The Executive Yuan has gone further: from January 2027, feeding food waste to pigs is prohibited outright, with 2026 as the transition year. Food waste is being redirected towards composting, energy recovery, and black soldier fly processing.
Which makes dog waste more of a problem there, not less:
- Dog and cat faeces can carry roundworm eggs, Giardia and other pathogens. Household and municipal composting does not reliably reach the temperature and duration needed to inactivate them.
- The output is increasingly headed for agricultural use. That is not a risk worth pushing into the food chain.
- Plastic bags of any kind are not permitted in food waste containers to begin with.
Putting non-permitted waste into a food waste container can draw a fine of NT$1,200 to NT$6,000 under Article 50 of the Waste Disposal Act, and collection crews can refuse it on the spot.
Can I flush it?
In Taiwan, no.
Sewerage coverage varies widely by area and a great many homes still run on septic tanks, which are not designed for this. And the bag itself will not dissolve — including ours. Compostable is not the same as water-soluble. Flushing a bag is a blockage waiting to happen.
So where do compostable bags go? The part about our own product
We should answer this plainly, because it concerns what we sell.
In Taiwan, compostable dog waste bags still go in general waste. Ours included. They will be incinerated along with everything else.
Taiwan has no widespread industrial composting infrastructure. That is the same reason the Ministry of Environment restricted biodegradable PLA tableware across eight categories of venue from August 2023: PLA needs industrial composting conditions to break down, so in practice it was being incinerated anyway while confusing PET recycling streams.
Which raises the obvious question. If it all burns, does the certification mean anything?
It depends entirely on which certification.
- Industrial composting (OK compost INDUSTRIAL, and most PLA products) requires a controlled environment at roughly 58°C. Taiwan does not have that infrastructure at scale.
- Home composting (OK compost HOME) is verified to break down at ambient temperature, around 25°C, over a longer period. It is the one category that does not depend on industrial facilities existing at all.
The difference does not show up on the day you throw the bag away. It shows up on the day something goes wrong — the bag that is dropped, buried, blown off a ledge, or washed into a drain. Conventional plastic persists. Oxo-degradable plastic, still sold here as “degradable”, fragments into microplastics; the EU banned it in 2021. Home-compostable material breaks down.
That is the honest case for paying more, and it is the only one we make. More on the standard we hold ourselves to.
The 2026 food waste rules, in three lines
- Taipei and New Taipei no longer separate raw and cooked food waste as of 2026.
- Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung and others still do. Follow your local environmental protection bureau.
- No plastic bags in the food waste container — compostable ones included.
What happens if you do not pick it up
Article 27 of the Waste Disposal Act explicitly prohibits discarding animal waste in public areas. Article 50 sets the penalty at NT$1,200 to NT$6,000, with daily consecutive fines where it is not remedied. Several municipalities also run reporting reward schemes that pay informants a share of the fine collected.
The more practical reason is the one you already know. Pet-friendly space in Taiwan exists on sufferance, and it gets withdrawn one complaint at a time.
Common questions
Is dog waste food waste?
No. Never. It is general waste.
Can I put dog waste in a home compost heap?
We would not. Home compost rarely holds the temperature needed to kill pathogens, and it should never go near soil used for food crops. Note that OK compost HOME certifies the bag — not what is inside it.
Do compostable bags need a special bin?
Not in Taiwan. General waste.
Does “degradable” mean the same thing as “compostable”?
No, and the gap between them is where most greenwashing lives. Compostable is defined by standards such as EN 13432 and verified by bodies like TÜV AUSTRIA and BPI. “Degradable” on its own is defined by nobody.
Is a certified bag worth paying for if it gets incinerated anyway?
Only for the failure case — and for keeping oxo-degradable plastic out of circulation. If that reasoning does not persuade you, buy the cheaper bag and pick up after your dog. That matters more than which bag you use.
PRINCE.PAW is a dog atelier in Taiwan — a small collection of the world’s finest dog goods, each lived with before it is offered. The waste bags in our collection are certified to OK compost HOME, OK compost INDUSTRIAL, EN 13432 and BPI, in FSC-certified packaging. See the piece, or read how we choose.