Poly Bags

A poly bag is a retail merchandise bag made of soft, thin, clear, flexible polyethylene. They are often used as inner packaging or wholesale solution to separate items and keep them clean. You can find them without print or pre-printed with a suffocation warning which many fulfillment centers require. They allow for scanning barcodes and are particularly suitable for online and retail sales.

A poly bag is a transparent bag with a self-seal closure designed for inner packaging. They are used with secondary transit packaging, such as a poly mailer or shipping box.

A poly mailer is a plastic envelope that ships durable and soft commodities. They are constructed from thin, lightweight, sturdy polyethylene film that is waterproof and tamper-resistant.

A poly bag is specifically designed for wholesale and is used to separate products and keep them clean. A plastic bag is a general term ranging from traditional grocery bags to reusable, re-sealable sliding channel storage bags such as Ziploc.

Yes - Polyethylene films (#4 or #2) can be recycled. In numerous cities across the United States, citizens are required to deliver the polyethylene films to designated drop-off locations found at various stores. These designated drop-off containers should solely consist of moisture-free and clean polyethylene. Find a participating store here.

A few curbside recycling programs take these bags. However, verifying with your waste management provider is advisable to ensure acceptance. For the most part, curbside programs do not accept them due to their lack of rigidity, impeding effective sorting by the equipment at most Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs).

Additionally, we provide a take-back program where consumers without access to thin film recycling can return these bags to EcoEnclose. We kindly request that individuals stuff these bags inside used poly mailers, as this aids in reducing the carbon footprint and enables us to recycle an even greater amount of poly film.

Our Guide to Thin Film Recycling and How2Recycle® Labeling is designed to help you navigate the nuance of thin film in your packaging.

Lay out the products you will be shipping on a table and measure the imaginary bounding box it would fit in. The two dimensions of your bag should exceed the largest two dimensions of your bounding box, plus a little extra room to compensate for the bag's expansion when it’s filled.

Once you have what you think is the perfect sized bag, order a free sample to test them. One of the worst feelings in the world is gathering everything required to start shipping your product and discovering that what you thought was perfect is too small. We want to avoid issues and encourage people to use our free samples.

As a frame of reference, we’ve compiled a table of common products shipped in our bags.

Some of our stockﾠis printed with a suffocation warning that meets Amazon FBA and state requirements. The suffocation warning is multilingual (English/Spanish/French) and is as follows:

WARNING: To avoid danger of suffocation, keep this plastic bag away from babies and children. Do not use this bag in cribs, beds, carriages, or play pens. This bag is not a toy.

The font size for the warning is as follows:

4x5" and 6x8": 10pt

7.5x10", 9x12", 10.5x14": 12pt

12x18": 14pt

18x24": 18pt

Fulfillment center prerequisite: More and more eCommerce businesses utilize third-party fulfillment houses that hold their products and fulfill the orders they receive. Amazon FBA is the most ubiquitous example of this type of operation. Most require that companies send their products individually packaged, and companies must individually wrap apparel in clear bags. For the fulfillment center, this ensures that products remain clean and protected while they are stored, making finding, grabbing, and packing orders easier for their staff. Many fulfillment centers also require that companies use bags with suffocation warnings which is required in several states.

To protect apparel and other products across the supply chain, from factories to end consumers: Apparel manufacturers and factories will often use poly bags to individually wrap garments. The product is then placed in shipping boxes and sent to the company’s fulfillment center. Why? Mainly for protection and more accurate quality assurance and sorting. If an apparel company receives goods in usable poly bags, it is often reasonable to use them when shipping products out for added product protection in transit.

In-transit inner protection from fulfillment centers to end consumers: Some companies manufacture and fulfill in-house but still use poly bags because they believe their products’ protection is essential. This mindset is often the case for companies that produce prints and other art or apparel brands that ship in paper-based solutions. A layer of protection for art prints ensures the artwork is protected from dust and weather damage. It is important to note that if even a small percentage of orders are damaged in transit, the ecological impact of throwing the products away or sending them back to the manufacturer for repair is much worse than that ecological impact. And, if you are an artist that puts tremendous effort into producing your piece, you know that its damage can’t begin to be measured in only cost and environmental impact.

No - we do not sell this style. Ours has the seal on the upper flap covered with a release liner, which is strongly preferred by fulfillment operations at the brands we work with.

We know that some companies, especially brands selling art and prints, prefer those with the self-seal on the bag to avoid any issues of their art adhering to the adhesive when consumers open it. While we don’t offer this as an option, we have received a lot of feedback from brands that - while this is a concern of theirs - ultimately, it is not an issue that their customers experience.

Hopefully, you find that the current construction works for you! If not, please contact us with your feedback, which will help us develop our short and long-term roadmap of product improvements.

Our top quality and price-competitive option is for brands looking for a more eco-friendly alternative. They are 100% recycled, recyclable, and domestically manufactured. These features are a big step in the right direction toward our ultimate vision of circularity. Learn more about why recycled content matters.

Our sustainable alternatives to clear poly bags provide a detailed overview of the options, with tips on finding the right approach for your unique business and operations. Our alternatives are paper options like Glassine Bags and Kraft Bag & Seals, roll wrap options, such as hemp twine or EcoBands, or Belly Bands to secure rolled-up apparel. These are typically master-cased protectively when shipped from a factory to the distribution center.

Note that there are several emerging bioplastic options on the market. Most bioplastic-based bags are either compostable in an industrial facility or must be landfilled if not certified. These should be avoided at this time.

Traditional Compostable Bioplastic: This bioplastic uses all virgin materials often produced through intensive, polluting agriculture. They aren’t recyclable but are usually recycled, potentially contaminating the recycling stream. They do not biodegrade in the ocean, so they do not help the marine plastic pollution crisis. They do not biodegrade in landfills, and when they end up composted, they are not positive additions to a compost heap. A rich, healthy compost heap is made with ample decomposing plants and food. A minute amount of bioplastic is acceptable, but too much volume leads to lower quality and less healthy compost, which is worse for the environment and harder for these facilities to sell.

Degradable Plastic: This material is an ecological hazard. Some are designed to break down rapidly into microplastics in an open environment. Others are designed to break down in a landfill, which causes methane production, one of the most significant contributors to greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. It is important to remember that when things end up in the landfill, the optimal situation is that this garbage remains stable and does not break down.

It is important to note that a developing set of recyclable bioplastic options are emerging. Additionally, research and development are being conducted to develop bioplastic bags that dissolve in water. These are exciting progressions in the development of bioplastic technology and should be evaluated and compared to recycled poly bags when they become more common.

Or should I consider PP, PVC, PEVA, or something else?

Polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE) belong to the thermoplastic family. Of the two, polyethylene is more flexible and durable. Additionally, it is far more recyclable in the United States. There is a ready market for PE film, and most Americans live within a few miles of a drop-off location.

Polypropylene is more rigid than LDPE. The telltale differentiator between the two materials is that LDPE stretches when you tear it, while PP tears like paper. Polypropylene is not recyclable and is a frustrating contaminant to recycling streams. Some brands ask for PP because it tends to be clearer than LDPE. We strongly encourage them to reject PP and be open to a slight bit of opacity in their material, given the sustainability advantages of LDPE.

We also find that some brands use PVC or PEVA, especially if they are trying to deliver a high-end experience with material that can be reused a few times. We strongly discourage using these materials, especially PVC, which is toxic and highly polluting. Learn more about our stance on PVC.

No - Degradable and biodegradable do not meet our strict framework and sustainability standards because they are typically worse for the planet than our options and often worse for the planet than a standard virgin poly bag.

Yes - Read Sustainable Alternatives to Poly Bags for an overview of our suite of eco-friendly solutions.

Yes - BPA is used in hard, rigid, polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins. BPA is not found in LDPE films. Ours - like all LDPE poly bags - are BPA-free.

Those that effectively protect your products, work functionally across your supply chain and are as eco-friendly as possible. EcoEnclose’s poly bags are 100% recyclable, 1.5 mil in thickness and highly durable, transparent, seal firmly and reseal (allowing for quality checks), and are cost-effective. Their recycled content is also third-party certified RSC100.

Yes - We can produce these bags with a bottom gusset. Minimums range based on bag dimensions, generally around 25,000 units. Contact our customer service team to learn more.

Yes - a Ziploc is the kind you’d buy at a grocery. They are made with LDPE and range in thickness from 1.5 mil to 3 mil or more. While they can certainly be used as a poly bag for inner protection, they are 100% virgin material and tend to be a lot more expensive than our offering.

Yes - For large enterprise brands looking for high-volume shipments of 100% recycled poly bags to their Asian factories, please contact us. We may manufacture your bags in Asia to maximize resource and cost efficiency.