Ziploc Big Bags

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Middle of 3 sizes

Pros:

• Thick and sturdy plastic
• Pleated bottom for standing & bulky items
• Built-in handles
• Easy closure
• Flexible shape
• See-through material

Cons:

• Can tear from hard items inside
• Only so useful for heavy items
• Potential wasted storage space

Review

The local WI branch of NAPO was fortunate to have a couple people from SE Johnson present at one of meetings and the following month, they had an exhibitor’s booth the national NAPO conference.  That is where I was able to get samples to try out – and this month is the Ziploc Big Bag.  The truth is that I wasn’t sure what I’d use them for and I’m not convinced how useful they are for many people.  Although there are certainly times when they are handy, and I found a couple of things to try mine out on.

My husband and I have been working on another room in the house.  Most of the boxes and other containers were used to gather everything to pull it out of the room.  I have a cherished stuffed turtle, and wanted him to be protected, so I grabbed one of the Ziploc Big Bags.  It worked well.  We painted the room and as we were moving the media cabinet back to the wall (which didn’t hold all the movies anyway), I questioned how many movies we needed.  Between the DVDs and VHS, we had almost 350, and similarly to the CD collection, I needed to consider the movies by time as well space.

So, I grabbed the second Ziploc Big Bag, dropping each movie into it that could probably go away.  I decided I wanted to watch most of the movies before getting them out of the house.  I put them on periodically while doing other things and worked my way through that bag.  I actually went through the movies in the cabinet again and added to the bag, and it slowly emptied.  In the meantime, I needed to periodically move the bag around for vacuuming and whatnot.

The Ziploc Big Bag helped contain all those movies and the handles made it easy to move around when I needed.  I did not stack movies in there nicely, they were jumbled up, and the bag did get some puck marks from the corners of the movies.  It did end up tearing just a little, after several months, though I felt like I was rougher on it than I needed to be. Since it was most see-through, I could see movies closer to the bottom and dig for them when I wanted and see titles without sticking my head into the bag.

I find the idea of using bags, especially large bags, for storage to go against my inclinations, with the exception of for soft, squishy things.  Then again, I don’t have kids and use the storage that we have without much need for more.  I’m not crazy about the shape, great it’s got a pleated bottom, but the top is still going to have a different shape than the bottom.  To me this means that there’ll be some wasted space.

I do like the idea that a Ziploc Big Bag is good for gift bags, and ours are currently not in the most convenient storage.  In some ways, I admit I need to think outside the box a bit more to fully appreciate the diversity of how these can be used.  I’m not sure whether I will ever be a bag person for storage overall, but I do think they can provide some benefits.

Overall, I’m quite impressed with Ziploc Big Bags and as long as they’d fulfill the storage (or transportation) needs, would suggest them.  I’m even going to keep them in mind for future storage needs of my own.

Note: All my reviews are done without consideration for the company (sorry!) – as unbiased as possible! I don’t receive anything from any of them and most don’t know I’m even reviewing their products.