Coles, Woolworths, Aldi plastic fruit and veggie plastic bags. Which is the biggest?

This size of the supermarket fruit and veggie bags may seem like a strange thing to want to measure but stick with me. I reuse the plastic bags in small rubbish bins. In fact, the recently issued council FOGO bin goes mouldy if I just use the green compostable bag, and I really don't like mould. The FOGO bin has a wide opening meaning many plastic bags won't fit. And don't worry, I remove the plastic bag before putting the green bag and contents into the green waste bin and pop the plastic bag into the rubbish bin. The plastic bag is just to stop the moisture forming in the FOGO bin and the plastic bag does a good job.

Measurements

Measured when flat

Coles 24 cm x 42 cm
Woolworths 10 cm x 50.5 cm
Adli 9.5 cm x 49.5 cm

Measured the width of the opening

Aldi 37 cm
Woolworths 38 cm
Coles 35 cm

The length of the bag is important to compare with the length of the bin or the item you may place in the bag. For example, I often put shoes in the bag when travelling. For a bin though it needs to reach the bottom. My small rubbish bin is 30 cm high with a diameter of 22 cm, so all bags are suitable, but the Coles bag just fits.

Keep in mind the width of the opening of the bag needs to be compared to the circumference of a round bin, or the perimeter of the square or rectangular bin. Double the width of the opening and then compare this to the perimeter or circumference of the bin.

For example, our round bin has a diameter of 22 cm. That's a circumference of 2 x pi x 11 or roughly 69 cm. Double the opening of the Coles bag and you get 70 cm, which makes for a good fit. The Aldi and Woolworths bags are a more comfortable fit.

The FOGO bin is a weird shape with curved corners. That best way to measure the perimeter is to use a string which gave me 79 cm. We can half this, which is 39.5cm and compare this to the bag widths. In all cases the bags are not big enough, but they do stretch. The best bag for the FOGO bin is the Woolworths bag. The Coles bag won't fit at all. The Aldi bag is a very tight fit making it quite difficult to get off.

Now if you're not into measuring things, just get the three bags when you visit the supermarkets next and try each one for the bins you use.

Kelvin