Phil Kauffman is number one in the “number two” business — or at least his version of it. The New Jersey entrepreneur, a former foot and ankle surgeon, applied what he learned in podiatry when he started his company, Poopeez. He introduced a single product to the veterinary industry during the 2026 VMX conference, where he manned a booth in the Expo Hall’s Startup Launchpad section.
Pivoting from practice after a health scare, Kauffman said he “employed some of the knowledge I had acquired in my training. Instead of helping to develop a screw or pin that eventually dissolves in the body after a bone heals, I modified that material to make a poop bag that dissolves in your toilet.”
Eco-friendly, biodegradable pet poop bags are common, but the 54-year-old inventor went a step further by harnessing the water that sits in a toilet.
“One day, I realized we’re giftwrapping our dogs’ waste in a single-use plastic bag,” he said. “At my apartment complex, the bag goes into a big can with another single-use plastic bag, which might be nested in a third single-use plastic bag, which ensures the waste never disappears. It will be here long after us, our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren.
“Instead of dropping a bag in the trash can when they come home,” he said of dog owners, “they take a couple more steps into their house and drop it in the toilet, flush the toilet, and they’re done.”
His solution involves the polymer PLLA, or poly-L-lactic acid, which is used in human dermatology as a filler. He declined to talk about his precise formulation or the manufacturing process as he pursues a patent.
Poopeez sells bags directly to pet owners at retail prices and to veterinarians at a wholesale cost. Kauffman thinks the second group is his key to success.
“This is an improvement upon how things have been done for so many years,” he said. “Consumers see veterinarians as the experts in the care of the most beloved member of the household — sometimes above a spouse and children. Shouldn’t we all aspire to be the human beings our dogs think we are?”