@op

I worked in a Blown Film Extrusion factory for about 9 years and we used to make a great amount of different type of trash bags. Every thing from little office can liners up to the big 55gal contractor bags. How the average house hold garbage bag fights odor is mostly a combination of 2 plastics blended into the material that make up the inside layer and the outside layer. There is a masking scent blended into the outside layer (we used a lemon or a pina colada type scented resin) and an odor absorber/filler type resin on the inside layer to help keep the stink inside the bag. If you are still curious about how it all comes together, pm me and I can run you through the whole process from resin pellets to finished trash bags.

Edit: Wow.. this got big. lol. So you guys want a basic ELI5 rundown of how a bag is made? Okidoke. Sorry about formatting, I'm a lurker most of the time.

• You start with your raw mats. This, for the plant I worked in, was a small batch of large cardboard gaylords (think tubs about the size of a hot tub) filled with different polymer resins.

• Next, the desired blend of materials is fed into the extruders (heated, pressurized screws that churn, rip, and mash the blend) where they are heated up to melt point and basically mixed like cake batter (though much thicker) and pushed into the die

• At the Die, the now goopy, molten plastic is pulled out in the form of a circle and pulled up while a massive amount of cool air is blown from the bottom, all the way around the bubble to cool the bubble allowing it to solidify and retain its shape. This stage is the fun "sciencey" part. You have to balance how fast the bubble is coming out of the die, with how thin or thick the blend is ("mil" or "gauge" thickness) and how much air you need to cool the whole thing or it just collapses in on it's self.

• As the bubble cools it is hauled away from the die by pneumatically controlled rubber rollers while being filled with air to reach it's desired size. (Typically comes out of the die around 380-400 degrees Far. but needs to cool to around 250 degrees or less to be "solid") This is the width of the bag, and it's basically a giant, infinite tube at this point.

• After the bubble reaches the rollers (Called a "nip") it is flattened into a sheet and called a web. The web is then pulled along a series of rollers and through other machines that modify the bag. Some machines add printing, while others slice, fold and reseal the bag to add draw strings.

• Eventually the web enters the most important part of the down stream equipment: The perforation and sealing machine. Typically just called "the bag machine." This machine basically controls how long the bags are by perforating the web at a set interval and then adding a seal, creating a 3rd side to the web.

• After the "bag machine" the web is usually folded and feeds into the final production machine. This machine will either fold separated bags into a pile where they can be hand packed into boxes and loaded into cases, or it will be rolled into traditional trash bag rolls where they also get hand packed and sealed into the store packaging and loaded into bulk cases.

Edit #2: Again, sorry if this looks like slop, I'm not much of a Redditor, and this caught me off guard. So I spat out something for the hungry masses as soon as I could. Enjoy!

you think im reading all that ^^^

Cardboard gaylords

enjoy your gold stranger

Thank you for the information, I am wiser now.