Glad vs Hefty trash bags

If your bags split, buy Glad ForceFlexPlus. If your can smells, buy Hefty Ultra Strong. That is genuinely the whole decision. Glad's engineering goes into the two places a bag actually fails - the side seams and the bottom corner - with a two-layer stretch film over the top. Hefty's goes into odor control worked through the whole film rather than a scent strip. Both are strong enough for ordinary kitchen waste, and neither fixes the other one's problem.

#	Product	Best for	Price
01	Glad ForceFlexPlus Tall Kitchen Drawstring Trash Bags, 13 GallonThe 13-gallon bag to buy if yours keep splitting: two layers of stretch film, double side seams and a reinforced bottom.	Best overall bag	$35.99 · View on Amazon Price as of October 16, 2026.  #ad How we make money
02	Hefty Ultra Strong Tall Kitchen Trash Bags, 13 GallonThe main alternative to Glad, with odor control worked into the film rather than added as a scent strip.	Best for odor	$15.47 · View on Amazon Price as of October 16, 2026.  #ad How we make money
03	Glad ForceFlex Tall Kitchen Trash Bags, 13 GallonThe standard ForceFlex: single-layer stretch film with a grip band that keeps the bag from sliding down the inside of the can.	Best everyday bag	$21.09 · View on Amazon Price as of October 16, 2026.  #ad How we make money

The reason this comparison gets asked so often is that the boxes look interchangeable and the marketing language is identical - both say strong, both say leak-resistant, both quote a multiplier. The specifications are where they diverge, and the specifications are measurable.

A 13-gallon bag is not a standardized object. Both brands print 13 gallons on the box and then cut the film to their own pattern, and the difference is big enough to decide whether the bag stays on your can's rim.

Half an inch of width and three-eighths of an inch of height sounds like nothing. On a 50-liter can with a plain rim and no retaining ring, it is the difference between a bag that grips the lip and a bag you find collapsed at the bottom by evening. The fit arithmetic, in full.

Bags do not tear in the middle. They fail at a side seam or at a bottom corner, under the weight of something wet, and Glad's product line is organized around exactly those two failure points.

• ForceFlexPlus adds a second layer of stretch film, double side seams and a reinforced bottom. This is the one to buy if you throw away bones, broken glass or a jar of something.
• ForceFlex is the single-layer version with a Grips-the-Can band - a strip that holds the bag on the rim rather than letting it slide down the inside. For ordinary kitchen waste that band matters more than the extra layer does.
• Stretch film is the house trick. It absorbs a puncture by deforming instead of tearing, which is why a 0.95 mil stretch bag beats a stiffer bag of the same thickness.

Hefty's Ultra Strong line resists leaks, punctures and tears like every competitor, but the thing it does differently is carry odor control continuously across the film rather than in a scent strip at the top of the bag. That is a real distinction. A scent strip perfumes the air at the opening; odor control in the film works wherever the film is.

Whether you want that is a matter of taste in the literal sense. Plenty of people find a lavender-scented bag worse than the smell it is covering, and scent does not remove odor compounds - it sits on top of them. If the goal is actually removing smell rather than masking it, the answer is carbon, not fragrance: how carbon filters work, and what to do when the can still smells.

The two bags this page is really about: buy the Hefty if the problem is smell, the Glad if the problem is splitting.

Best for odor

Hefty Ultra Strong Tall Kitchen Trash Bags, 13 Gallon

The main alternative to Glad, with odor control worked into the film rather than added as a scent strip.

$15.47 · View on Amazon

Price as of October 16, 2026.  #ad How we make money

Best overall bag

Glad ForceFlexPlus Tall Kitchen Drawstring Trash Bags, 13 Gallon

The 13-gallon bag to buy if yours keep splitting: two layers of stretch film, double side seams and a reinforced bottom.

$35.99 · View on Amazon

Price as of October 16, 2026.  #ad How we make money

That last row is the uncomfortable one. If you own a 50 to 65-liter can with no retaining ring, no supermarket 13-gallon bag will ever sit properly in it, because the nominal gallon figure on the can and the one on the bag were never dimensioned to each other. Fitted liners versus ordinary bags, and the whole fit problem.

We have not weight-tested these bags. What this comparison is built from is the published flat dimensions and mil thickness on retailer listings for each specific product, plus each brand's own description of its film construction, seam design and odor technology. Where a figure is a manufacturer claim - Glad's 2X leak protection, for example - we label it as one rather than repeating it as a measurement. Methodology, disclosure.

One genuine limitation: both brands sell several lines under similar names, and dimensions differ between them. The three rows in the table above are the three products we found published numbers for. If you are buying a different line from either brand, the box will usually print the dimensions on the end panel - check there rather than assuming. Glad also sells cans as well as bags, and they are a shorter and more specific line than the bag range suggests: the best Glad trash cans sorts out which one is which.