Open top bulk bags

What you are buying: walls, floor, loops

Strip a bulk bag down to its simplest form and this is what's left. Four walls of woven polypropylene, or a tube, sewn to a flat floor, with a loop at each corner and a hemmed edge at the top. No top panel, no spout, no tie. The label still carries the SWL, the safety factor and the maker, and it still matters, because people tend to overload a bag they can see into.

Fabric weight is the real variable. Rounded river gravel is gentle on fabric. Broken concrete, rebar ends and metal turnings are not, and a sharp corner can start a tear that runs under load. For rough material, ask for a heavier fabric and keep the fill under the rated weight.

Height is chosen by density. Dry sand is heavy for its volume, so a short bag reaches its weight long before the walls are full. Wood chips, mulch or shredded plastic are bulky and light, and need tall walls to carry a useful amount. Ordering one tall size for every material on a mixed job means half-empty bags of sand and overflowing ones of mulch.

Loading from a bucket, and getting it out again

An open top bag filled on bare ground slumps. Before the first bucket goes in, hang the four loops on a fill frame or on the forks of a second machine so the walls stand up square. Dump in passes rather than one drop from height, and keep the bucket teeth clear of the rim.

There is no discharge spout, so emptying means one of two things: lift the bag over a bin, hopper or pile and cut the floor, or tip it out by hand where the load is light enough. Either way, plan for the bag to be done once it is cut.

• Hang the loops before filling so the bag holds its shape
• Fill in passes and watch the scale or count buckets
• Lift by all four loops, never by two
• Keep people out from under a raised bag

Bales, pallets and the jobsite drop

Open tops fold the flattest of any style, since there's no neck to tuck, and they bale tightly. Bales go onto pallets, get wrapped, and ship as pallet freight. A single pallet usually travels LTL. Contractors running several sites sometimes take a larger order to one yard and shuttle bales out themselves.

Jobsites rarely have a dock. If yours doesn't, say so in the request; LTL carriers can send a liftgate truck, and we book that with the shipment rather than finding out when the driver calls.

Rental yards, landscapers and roofing crews tend to work the same way: a stack of folded bags rides in the pickup, gets filled on site, and a boom truck or crane collects the full ones later.

Open, duffle or spout: picking the top

If you ever need to close the bag, a duffle top gives you the same wide mouth with a skirt that ties shut, which keeps rain and debris out in storage. A spout top only makes sense when product flows from a fill head. For loose aggregate under a loader, the open top is quicker, and nothing at the rim can tear or tangle.

Used open top bags are common in sand and gravel work. We quote them after inspection, for non-food loads only, and we don't promise a given bag is fit for another trip. A 5:1 bag was rated for one fill.

Writing up the open top request

Tell us the material, the biggest piece, the fill weight and how it is loaded. Add the job ZIP, whether there's a dock or forklift on site, and how many bags you need per week or for the whole job. We price the bags and the freight together and confirm the delivery day with the carrier.