45 x 45 x 60 in bulk bag

Two across with ten inches to spare

45 x 45 x 60 = 121,500 cubic inches; / 1,728 = 70.3 cubic feet; about 1,991 litres. In an assumed 53 ft van with 100 in of inside width, two of them take 90 in, leaving 10 in in all. A filled bag rounds out past 45 in, so that spare space goes quickly. Down the 630 in length, 630 / 45 = 14 rows: 28 floor spots, the fewest of any size here.

On pallets the margins are just as thin. A 48 x 48 in pallet leaves 1.5 in per side on the empty size. A 48 x 40 in pallet is 2.5 in short on each 40 in side, and a 40 x 40 in pallet is 2.5 in short all round.

Doorways are the check people forget. A 45 in bag on a 48 in pallet, carried through a dock door, across a leveller and past the trailer's rear frame, needs clear width at each step. Most of those openings are generous; a cold-room door or an old warehouse doorway may not be.

A 45 in bag also needs a filling head and frame wide enough for its loops. On a frame set up for 35 in bags the hooks may sit too close together, pulling the loops inward and puckering the top. Adjustable hook arms solve it; ask your equipment supplier before the first order.

What 70.3 cubic feet carries

Assumed densities through the box: pellets at 34 lb per cubic foot, 2,390 lb; flour at 36 lb, 2,531 lb; seed corn at 45 lb, 3,164 lb; sugar at 50 lb, 3,515 lb; fertilizer at 60 lb, 4,218 lb. To fill the box, pellets need a 2,500 lb bag, flour a 3,000 lb one, seed 3,300 lb, sugar 4,000 lb and fertilizer 4,400 lb. Cement, gravel and sand would run past 6,300 lb and off our rating table.

The size suits light product shipped in volume, where each lift and each floor spot should carry all it can, and where the fill line has more width than height to give.

Recyclers baling film or bottles ship bales, not bags; bulk bags come in for loose flake, ground regrind and purgings that will not hold a bale. For that loose stream, a wide bag standing open under a grinder's discharge chute catches material with little spillage.

Wide bags carry products that are light and awkward rather than fine as well: wood chips, shredded rubber, mulch and compost for landscape markets. Their weight per cubic foot shifts with moisture, so weigh real fills rather than trusting a book figure.

Wide versus tall

Against the 41 x 41 x 72, this bag holds 0.3 cubic feet more at 12 in less height. It is 1.33 times as tall as wide against 1.76, so it stands steadier, sits lower under the fill head and drops a shorter column at discharge. In exchange it loses a row in the van and most of its pallet margin.

The four loops sit farther apart on a 45 in bag. Set the forklift tines to the loop spacing so each loop hangs straight up, and use tines long enough to pass through both loops on each side. A loop pulled sideways carries load in a way it was not tested for.

Payload before floor

At 2,390 lb of pellets, 28 bags would be 66,920 lb, so the 44,000 lb payload stops the load at 44,000 / 2,390 = 18 bags. At 3,164 lb of seed, 13. Even light product in this size ships by weight. A truckload of empties is a different sum: folded bags ride in bales on pallets, and a few pallets of bales often go LTL.

Unloading at the far end needs a forklift whose tines spread to the loop spacing of a 45 in bag. A fixed, narrow carriage may not reach, so ask the receiver before the first truck ships.

Empties for this size arrive in bales like any other, but each folded bag is larger, so a bale holds fewer and weighs more. Store bales flat, dry and out of sun, and break them open only at the filler.

• 2,500 lb SWL for resin, up to 4,400 lb for denser fills
• Spout top or duffle top; spout or flat bottom
• Four loops, each one to its own tine or onto the crane bar
• A 48 x 48 in pallet under every filled bag