Trash bag sizes explained

Twenty to thirty gallon large trash bags. There is no standard household size in between, which is why 15 and 16-gallon cans are genuinely awkward to line.

That gap is the single most useful thing to know about this ladder, and it catches people out constantly: they size up from a 13-gallon can to a 55 or 60-liter one, then discover the bag market has nothing that fits it properly.

Why the gap exists

Nobody designed the ladder. It accreted around the can sizes that sold. Thirteen gallons became the American kitchen standard, 33 became the commercial round standard, and 42-45 became the contractor standard — and the sizes in between never got enough volume to justify a product line. Meanwhile can manufacturers, particularly European ones, kept making 45, 50, 55 and 60-liter cans, which land squarely in the gap.

The practical workarounds, in order of how well they work: use a can with a retaining ring or liner rim that grips the bag by the rim; buy the longest 13-gallon bag you can find rather than the shortest; or use the manufacturer's own coded liner if the can has a code system. The fit arithmetic.

A mil is a thousandth of an inch. It is the other number on a bag box and it matters more than the gallon figure for whether the bag survives.

For reference against the ladder above: Glad's tall kitchen drawstring bag is published at 0.95 mil, Hefty's at 0.9, and Plasticplace's heavier drawstring at 1.2. That spread is the difference between a bag that tears on a chicken carcass and one that does not.

One caveat. Mil is a measure of thickness, not strength — a stretch-film bag at 0.9 mil can outperform a rigid one at 1.2, because stretching absorbs a puncture that a stiffer film simply tears on. Treat mil as a strong hint rather than a specification, and weigh construction features (double side seams, reinforced bottoms) alongside it. Which bags we would buy.

Three closure and construction types, and they are not interchangeable.

• Drawstring. Two cords along the top hem that pull the bag closed and form carry handles. The standard for kitchen bags, because you are carrying the bag by hand to an outdoor can. The failure point is the hem tearing where the cord exits.
• Flap tie. Two flaps you knot together. Cheaper, and the knot is genuinely more secure than a drawstring once tied, but it is slower and the knot is a nuisance to undo if you need to add something.
• Star seal. A bottom seam construction rather than a closure — the base is gathered in a star shape rather than sealed in a straight line. It distributes weight around the base instead of concentrating it on one seam, which is why commercial and contractor bags use it. If you are loading heavy waste, this matters more than the mil figure.

For a kitchen can, drawstring with a reinforced bottom is the sensible default. For anything you will drag rather than carry, look for a star seal.

The two words are used interchangeably in shops and they should not be. A "liner" usually means a bag sized to a specific container — a coded liner for a branded can, or a commercial liner sized to a drum. A "trash bag" is a general-purpose product cut to fit a range.

That difference is why a coded liner costs several times what a supermarket bag does and why it sits flush when the supermarket bag does not. Whether that is worth it depends entirely on how much the overhang bothers you. We work through the trade properly here.