Some bins work best with bin liners (like refrigerator bins… Google these if you have never never heard of them before. I hadn’t until very recently, but everything changed since then.). Some bins require bin liners (like trash bins. I guess they could probably go under the first category, but no one really just throws trash in cans anymore without a bag, and that’s because the result is nasty and disgusting).

Some bins don’t need bin liners at all. Consider Tupperware bins, or the Rubbermaid kind. Bins that don’t need the plastic reinforcement because they are secure enough and strong enough to protect whatever they are holding. In the case of my home, it’s going to be clothes that are too big for my kids (labelled Boy 5T winter, or Girl 24 mos. summer).

If it’s not stuff for them to grow into it’s what they’ve already grown out of: baby 0-12 mos., and baby gear- tub, wraps, bottles, etc. This is what my basement looks like. My basement also has a litter box, which I should really start buying liners for. And my basement also has a tote full of catfood, that I should also get some sort of liner for because even though it is in a plastic container something about it still attracts bugs and we have facilitated the start of some sort of small beetle colony somewhere in the vicinity. Not that I’m complaining.

I used to live in an apartment on the ground floor, a really crappy place, it was so drafty that we couldn’t even tape up those plastic sheets around the windows in the colder months because the wind coming through the cracks would blow it down. Insane, I tell you. Also, the grass grew to over one foot tall before it was cut, and it was not uncommon to almost step on a rabbit or a freaking snake on your way out to the car. The point is, though, that this crappy apartment had an ant problem, and the ants congregated to the cat food. Poor thing couldn’t even eat because her food was crawling…

The thing about bin liners is that they can be super helpful and handy, like in the case of the ones for the refrigerator, which work some kind of miracle in preserving fruits and vegetables. They can be considered a household staple slash necessity if you are like a normal household and believe in putting your garbage in a protected can. Whatever the case, there are a plethora to choose from, and they each have their own story and purpose. Just like everything else on this place, for goodness sake.

As a kid I always really loved that song Auld Lang Syne. It’s got a bit of a haunting-ness to it, and it always gave me the chills. Loosely translated, it means “for old times”. This doesn’t have much to do with custom shipping bags, but it’s the beginning of the new year and I wanted to put in a plug for 2016. And now: custom shipping bags, and how you can use them for everyday projects, purposes, problems, etc.

I was talking in Part 1 about how, if you are like me, you probably have a nice stash of custom shipping bags accumulated from the holiday season: grocery bags, both plastic and paper (we already talked about what to do with those), bubble bags from the Precious Moments figurines your grandmimi still sends you every stinking chance she gets, poly bags which were for making up little Christmas sacks that your kids could pass out in class, and some really snazzy eurototes that most of your presents came in because you are an adult and it is assumed that you no longer like to tear up wrapping paper. Before you throw all of that stuff away, let’s talk about different ways they can be used now that the holidays are over.

The bubble bags. I use those to wrap my ornaments in. You have probably put all of your ornaments away by now, and I don’t blame you for not wanting to drag out the boxes simply for the sake of repackaging. So if you don’t want to throw them through the attic hole so that they are waiting for you next year, use to protect precious objects in your china cabinets and what not. If not, the kids love these things.

All of those leftover poly bags, that make such cute little handouts, can safely be tucked away and used for birthday favors in the future. Or for passing out samples for your home business. And of course all of those eurototes can be put in an actual plastic tote for when you need to wrap something. If the eurotote is blatantly holiday-themed, you are just going to have to wait until next year to reuse them. Or, once again, there is something about the simplicity of such a thing that is charming to a child. My kids play with these things for hours. Whatever the case, don’t be frustrated by leftover custom shipping bags. They don’t have to be a one trick pony; get creative!

Well, Happy New Year, everyone. It’s that time again. 2016. Over three hundred glorious (right?) days ahead of us. I’m sure there will be some amazing, and some terrifying, things lurking, ahemm, waiting for us this year, but I know that it’s all going to be okay in the end. Anyway, before I get too sappy, let me get into talking about all those custom shipping bags you got over the holiday season, and how you can wind up using them for everyday projects, problems, and everything in between.

Consider all of those bags from the grocery store that you’ve been stashing to the side. How many trips did you take because you forgot one stinking thing for the recipe and twenty plus ticking time bombs are counting on you to feed them before they explode? All over each other, and your house… So, in your haste, you tossed all those grocery bags, plastic and paper alike, onto the back porch. Well, now I will tell you a use for them. A friend of mine keeps a little bin on her kitchen counter, and she lines it with one of those plastic grocery bags, and she puts her compostable stuff in there: egg shells, chicken pieces, leftovers… She takes it out every day so that the big garbage can doesn’t start stinking before it’s even halfway full.

Remember how you were trying to light the annual, celebratory bonfire, and you were having a really hard time doing it? All of those nieces and nephews staring at you, their roasting sticks at the ready, silent looks of passive aggressive embarrassment and condemnation on their faces. You tried to tell them that it had just rained, but the snicker triggered something in your brain and you spent the next hour rubbing two sticks together until you finally got a blaze.

Well, remember the paper grocery bags (which also count as custom shipping bags)? If you had stuffed them with leaves you could have used them as a giant sack of tinder and put all those crazy kids to shame. The awe that would have been shining in their eyes, with the reflection of a massive blaze that roasted many, many marshmallows that night…

There’s more to say about custom shipping bags, and how they can be used for the everyday. Join me in part two to pick up some other great ideas!

One of the things I love the most at PackagingSupplies.com is the variety that they have to offer. For example, I recently went to the website in search of trash bags. I found bin liners of all shapes and sizes! Yes, I found garbage bags, which are technically bin liners, but I also found the real deal, which are the bags that go inside of enormous cardboard boxes.

PackagingSupplies.com is an accredited business with the Better Business Bureau. Have you ever tried doing business with a company that is not accredited? Well, I do not suggest it. It will wind up being a terrible experience. We once used a moving company that apparently had no real credentials and, although the company did move our stuff and did a fine job of it, they completely scammed us in the process.

After weeks of trying to get ahold of them I finally got in touch with a Russian man who forwarded me to someone else, who admitted that he had dealt dishonestly but how else was he supposed to make his money? This is seriously a true story, even right down to the Russian guy. It was very weird. And is NOT the type of experience you will have at PackagingSupplies.com. Why? Because of that awesome little picture at the top of the page with blue torch looking thing against a white background.

This is how you know that the bin liners you are ordering will actually be bin liners, and they will actually come in the mail. Nothing sucks worse than knowing someone pulled one over on you, and got richer from it to boot. That’s not going to happen at PackagingSupplies.com. They have the inventory to back it up, too. The bin liners come on rolls, with each bag perforated so that you just have to unroll one at a time and pull it off.

The sides are gusseted so that the entire space of the bin can be utilized. It is important to remember, though, when purchasing pin liners to add an inch to the width and depth of the box, and six inches to the height, so that you know the bag you are getting is going to be roomy enough. Starting at 1.5 mil and going all the way up to 4 mil, there are probably a hundred different sizes to choose from, and that is not an exaggeration! Or not too big of one, anyway…

Let’s talk a little bit about poly shipping bags. First of all: what are they? So the ‘shipping bags’ part seems pretty self-explanatory. But it’s that ‘poly’ part that starts throwing people off. Don’t feel bad, it threw me off too. I had to learn all about ‘poly’ and so now I will tell you. First of all, ‘poly’ is really just short for ‘polypropylene’ and now you can see why they were trying to keep it simple.

Nobody likes something they can’t pronounce. If it can’t be pronounced than surely it is something dangerous, like some mind-trick of the government or some secret agency that is somehow scamming us into doing their dirty work by not using the full term. Allow me to clear the air. I will spare you the spiel about the chemical and physical properties because it really doesn’t make any sense. Polypropylene on the molecular level doesn’t really matter to us because we are just trying to talk about poly shipping bags. I will tell you that it is a kind of polymer which, in the synthetic world (synthetic is a fancy way of saying ‘fake’), is basically plastic. So that probably doesn’t come as a surprise. Poly shipping bags are plastic. Big whoop. Well did you know that polypropylene is the second most important plastic? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

This type of material is chosen to make things out of because it is durable: its not easily destroyed, and it can withstand freezing and especially heat. On top of that, it is able to be joined by heat fusion which is a huge plus. All of this now ties into poly shipping bags. When you buy them you know you are getting a durable product that won’t be easily ruined, which means that it could probably even be reused, and at least whatever it is holding will be sufficiently protected. As for the heat joining, this is the cool part.

At PackagingSupplies.com they sell bag sealers, which does exactly what it says it does: it seals a bag by melting the two ends together, cutting off the excess in the process. The hand sealers come equipped with timers based on the thickness of the plastic, so that you don’t have to worry about doing a poor job. In particular, the rolls of poly tubing seem like the most effective type of poly shipping bags. You can use the heat sealer to just roll off however big you want the bag to be, and then seal it, and the next bag can be even bigger or smaller. When it’s all said and done, polypropylene has done the world of shipping and packaging and storing a huge favor.