Waste Bags and Sacks

Waste bags

Buy cheap waste bags and sacks for all of your rubbish disposal needs.

Waste bags are plastic sacks that make it easier to manage waste. Whether you are indoors in the home or office, or outdoors in the garden or on the building site, nobody wants to have to move piles of waste from bin to bin by using just their hands.

Imagine a world without waste bags, having to scoop out a pile of of semi-eaten food, used tissues and nappies and non-recyclable packaging from your kitchen bin before transporting it to your wheelie bin. Thankfully, waste bags mean that we needn’t face such an unpleasant task.

Waste bags - the basics

Take your waste bag, put in your a convenient location - whether lining a bin or standing loose on its own - and fill it up over time with the necessary waste, but don’t forget to recycle everything you can!

Once your waste bag is full - but not too full - take it to the relevant place and dispose of it correctly. This place will depend entirely on what the rubbish is. A full bin liner may go in your wheelie bin, a clear polythene bag full of shredded paper might go to your main recycling bin and a full rubble bag might go in a skip or directly to the tip.

Whatever you do, just make sure you dispose of the waste carefully or you might be in for a messy job to clear it up, which defeats the object of having one in the first place!

Types of waste bag

The term ‘waste bag’ covers a multitude of functions and there are various types of big you can pick to help you with the job in hand. Here are some of the more popular:

Black sacks - the classic black bin bag is the vessel most commonly associated with rubbish. Use it to line your rubbish bin and collect your waste before transporting it to your exterior dustbin or wheelie bin.

Bin liner - black sacks are often used as bin liners for larger bins, but smaller ones such as pedal bins or square bins are best catered for by the smaller bin liner, often white in colour and made from a slightly thinner material. Fits snugly inside your bin.

Clear waste sacks - large see-through bags ideal for collecting waste that you want to see or need to check over before disposing. For example, it allows you to check a bag of paper shredding is (a) just paper and (b) shredded properly before throwing the contents in the main recycling bin.

Garden waste bag - the bag of choice for collecting fallen leaves, weeds, freshly mown grass, plant cuttings, vines cut down from the side of the house next door etc. Often green in colour and made of a slightly stronger gauge of plastic than your average black bin bag, to prevent rips or punctures.

Recycling bags - a range of different coloured bags that allow people to distinguish different types of waste, e.g. blue for plastic, green for glass, silver/grey for aluminium, white for paper, brown for food. Note: if your waste is being collected (e.g. by a local council) then make sure you comply with their colour schemes.

Rubble bags - strong, thick and durable waste bags ideal for use on the building site or collecting heavy duty waste in the garden. Extra thick gauge plastic means that these bags don’t rip, tear or puncture easily. Can cope with masonry, roof tiles, bricks, rocks, pebbles or other hardcore.

Specialist bags - as the name suggest, these bags cater for a specific need and are marked accordingly, e.g. red asbestos bags correctly labelled to ensure that this dangerous material is handled properly, or yellow bags to cater for clinical waste.

Biodegradable bags - these environmentally-friendly bags allow you to do your bit for the planet while still disposing of your waste. Types of biodegradable bags include bin liners and waste sacks that break down in landfill disposal, plus starch sacks that break down quickly in compost conditions so are ideal for food waste.

Save on waste bags - reduce your waste!

There is a lot of stuff said and written about the environmental impact of packaging, including waste bags. Obviously the most sensible solution to reduce packaging waste is to re-use the packaging where possible, but this is not always easy when it comes to waste bags.

Used waste sacks will often contain many small, loose items that require a bag to transport them and often these will be wet or even smelly - hence the need for the waste bag in the first place.

The best way of reducing the impact of waste bags is to reduce the amount of waste we produce. Always re-use items where possible. If you have a plastic bag, use it again and again and again. Re-use takeaway containers as handy tupperware boxes for fridge or freezing. That sort of thing.

Recycling solutions are becoming more and more available to people across the UK as councils put in place more waste collections and allow people to separate their waste more. So make sure you do the basics - split your glass, paper and plastics - all of which can be collected in coloured recycling bags that can then be re-used.

Where can I buy waste bags?

Manufacturers and suppliers of waste bags include:

Black Sacks
BlackSacks.co.uk is a division of Polybags, trading online since 1999, who specialise in black bags. Black Sacks offer a fantastic range of quality rubbish bags, bin liners, builders bags, mailing bags and grip seal bags, all at competitive prices and with free UK delivery.
blacksacks.co.uk

Rubble Bags
Specialists in brick and rubble sacks with great prices and discounts on brick sacks, rubble sacks, builders rolls, plastic sheeting. Everything you need to know to help you choose the best type of builders bags for your needs.
www.rubblebags.org

Waste-Bags
Waste-Bags.co.uk is a great website to help you buy a range of waste sacks at competitive prices. Providing a list of the best retailers and all of the information you need on traditional bin bags and bin liners, along with some eco-friendly alternatives.
www.waste-bags.co.uk

Rubbish Sacks
A very useful resource of information on rubbish bags, from bin liners to specialist waste sacks and rubble bags to eco-friendly waste sacks. Includes a list of online suppliers to help you choose the best place for cater for all of your rubbish disposal needs.
www.rubbishsacks.co.uk

Research & Resources

To find out more about waste bags and sacks, including information on the manufacturing process and the different types of waste bags available, try out these websites:

Goldstork: "pick of the web" free directory. On Goldstork you will find carefully selected information and websites specialising in waste sacks.

PlasticBags.uk.com: Free web directory specialising in polythene packaging. Submit your own product listings for free or browse the site for useful websites on waste sacks.

PackagingKnowledge: Read in-depth news and information about the flexible plastic packaging industry including this article on waste sacks.

Say no to food waste!

Collecting food waste in kitchens has become a lot more common in recent years and starch-based Polybio sacks that compost in 10-12 weeks are perfect for storing thrown out kitchen waste, as well as garden waste. Throwing your food waste into a compost heap or a food waste collection bin for your local council is obviously preferable to chucking the food in the bin, from where it will just end up on some landfill site.

However, if people really want to save the planet, a much better solution than throwing away food into a food bin is to not waste so much food in the first place!

Food waste - the facts

7.2 million tonnes of food and drink is thrown out from UK homes every year. This costs £12bn a year - that’s an average of £480 a year per household, rising to £680 for a family with kids. We throw away more food in the UK each year than packaging.

Most food is thrown away because people buy too much in the first place, meaning the food goes off before it is cooked, or too much food is cooked, not eaten and then the rest thrown away as leftovers. So think smarter before you buy and before you cook about what you’ll actually eat.

If everyone in the UK stopped wasting and throwing away food that could have been eaten, the beneficial effect on the environment would be equivalent to taking 20% of cars of the road - that’s one in five!

Heavy duty waste bags

Heavy duty bags do exactly what is says on the tin. They are plastic waste bags that can handle heavy duty work. They are made from heavy duty polythene which is much thicker than standard polythene and can therefore handle heavy duty goods, which means the ability to bear more weight and strain.

The extra thickness of the heavy duty polythene not only means that the bag can take the strain of a weightier load, but it also means that items with rougher edges can be carried in the bag without it ripping. Waste such as builders rubble would tear apart most standard polythene bags but this is meat and drink to the heavy duty bag.