Sustainability Through Innovation: Single Ply Paper Bags

In today’s world, the most common flexible package is the multiwall paper bag. Multiwall bags pack most of the world’s cement, mortar mix, and chemicals. They are also widely used in packing seeds, feeds, absorbents, pet foods, and such human food products as flour and sugar.

Environmentally speaking, this is a good thing. Paper bags are made from a renewable resource – trees - and in the majority of cases they are fully recyclable. They boast excellent package to product ratios, good recovery rates, use little energy in transport, and, when they do end up in landfills, take up far less space than rigid packaging options like boxes, jugs and buckets.

As the world’s third largest producer of multiwall bags, Hood Packaging Corporation is proud of the good environmental profile of our multiwall sacks. But we asked the question, “Can we make this excellent option better?”

Our answer is our line of single ply paper bags. Whereas multiwall sacks typically use three, four, or even five plies of paper to achieve needed strength and product protection, our single ply bags are technically advanced, high strength, completely recyclable paper. When we use less paper to package the same amount of product, energy consumption is reduced, as are greenhouse gas emissions. Transports costs are lower, and forest resources are preserved. As is the case with all papers used at Hood, paper in our single ply bags is sourced from forests certified by the Sustainable Forest Initiative or other, similar, forest conservation agencies, assuring that the forest resources we use today will also be available to future generations.

Single ply bags are not right for every customer. But for those applications where they can be used, they are the perfect marriage of functionality and environmental responsibility.