Bulk bag questions

The ratio is the safety factor, the test load divided by the SWL. A 5:1 bag is a single-trip design tested to five times its working load; a 2,000 lb SWL bag was tested to 2,000 x 5 = 10,000 lb. A 6:1 bag is a multi-trip design tested to six times, so 12,000 lb for the same SWL, and multi-trip standard-duty bags also pass a 4,000 kg, six-hour compression test. Only 6:1 bags are made to be filled more than once.

There's no fixed count. A 6:1 multi-trip bag can be refilled as long as it passes a visual inspection before each use: no damage to loops, seams or fabric, a legible label, clean and dry inside, and no long exposure to sun. The maker's guidance also says users shouldn't repair bags. When a bag fails inspection, it is retired to recycling, however many trips it has made.

No. A 5:1 bag was tested for one fill and the maker recommends it not be reused. It may look fine after emptying, but nobody tested the extra margin a second trip would need. Send single-trip bags to recycling. We don't buy them back for reuse and we don't sell them as used bags.

SWL stands for safe working load: the most product the bag may hold and be lifted with. It is printed on the label with the safety factor. Fill up to it, never past it, even if the bag has room left at the top. If a label is missing or unreadable, treat the bag as having no rating.

A Type C bag has conductive threads woven through the fabric. Those threads carry static charge away only when the bag is connected to ground through its grounding tab during filling and discharge. If the ground isn't connected, the bag gives no protection and can be unsafe. Follow your site's hazardous-area assessment and the bag maker's grounding instructions every time.

Type A is plain polypropylene with no static protection. Type B has low breakdown voltage fabric that prevents propagating brush discharges and is for dry flammable powders where no flammable vapour or gas is present. Type C is conductive and must be grounded. Type D is static-dissipative and works without a ground. Which one you need comes from your hazardous-area assessment; check the standards it cites and the maker's documents.

No. A used bag's prior contents and handling can't be proven clean enough for food or pharma. Those products go in new bags made for food contact. Used bags suit sand, gravel, aggregate and some feed and mineral loads, after inspection.

A food grade bag is made from materials suited to food contact and produced under hygiene controls meant to keep contamination out, often with a liner. A regular industrial bag has no such controls. Ask the supplier for the documents that cover your product and your customer's requirements, and confirm them before the first fill.

By weight, whatever its SWL says, commonly 1,000 lb to 4,400 lb. By volume, width x depth x height: a 35 x 35 x 50 in body is 61,250 cubic inches, or about 35.4 cubic feet. Which limit you hit first depends on your product's density. Heavy sand reaches the weight long before the bag is full; light pellets fill the bag first.

A baffle bag has fabric panels sewn across its inside corners. They stop the body rounding out as it fills, so the bag stays roughly square. That fits more product on the same pallet footprint and makes stacks steadier in storage and in the trailer. Baffles help most with free-flowing powders and pellets.

A spout top is a narrow tube that ties around a fill nozzle and keeps dust in, so it suits powders and pellets filled from a fixed station. A duffle top is a wide skirt that opens fully for loading by bucket, chute or hand, then ties closed. Match the top to the way your line fills.

Use a PE or PP film liner, or coated fabric, when the product picks up moisture, is fine enough to sift through woven fabric, or must be kept especially clean. Coarse, dry material usually doesn't need one. A liner adds cost and a step at discharge, so ask for it only when the product calls for it.

Yes, most can. The woven polypropylene is sorted, cleaned, shredded and pelletised into resin for new plastic products. Bags that held hazardous material are the main exception. Empty them, pull the liners, fold them flat and bale them by size to make a lot a recycler will accept.

Our empties desk takes requests from sites with used bags. Send the count, condition, prior contents, location and label photos. Clean 6:1 multi-trip bags may qualify for buy-back; the rest can usually go to recycling. We book the pickup once you agree the plan.

A few pallets of baled bags usually ride less-than-truckload, sharing a trailer and moving through terminals. A full trailer moves direct and costs less per bag if you can store the count. When an order sits near the break point, we price both.

Then the truck needs a liftgate to lower pallets to the ground, and someone with a pallet jack or forklift to move them. Liftgates have a per-pallet weight limit and usually an added charge. Tell us at the quote stage so the right truck is booked.

We plan against your window and book a carrier appointment, but transit is in the carrier's hands. We pass on what the carrier commits to and tell you as soon as anything changes. That's why we ask for the earliest and latest days you can receive.