Heavy-duty plastic bag with easy tear corner spout portion

Abstract

A heavy-duty plastic bag for containing a granular product is provided with a pouring spout defined in a top corner thereof by a detachable corner portion. The detachable corner portion is formed by a perforated tear line profile formed in juxtaposition in a front and a rear wall of the bag. The tear line profile defines a first straight line segment extending downwardly from the top edge of the bag and angulated at an angle with respect to the top edge in the direction of a near one of the opposed side edges of the bag. The first straight line segment merges into a concavely curved transition segment to connect to a second straight line segment extending downwardly from the transition segment at an angle with respect to the near one of the opposed side edges and terminates at the near one of the side edges. The concavely curved transition segment has a length which is approximately 15% of the total length of the perforated tear line profile. The perforated tear line profile is formed by a constant and equal cut-to-uncut perforation ratio. Preferably, but not exclusively, the plastic bag is adapted to retain granular products such as coarse salt pellets, fertilizer, sand, lawn and garden products and a plurality of other granular products.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD[0001]The present invention relates to a heavy-duty plastic bag having a novel spout opening defined by a perforated tear line profile formed in a top corner portion of the bag to dispense a granular product from the bag at an improved dispensing rate.BACKGROUND ART[0002]Reference is made to our earlier issued U.S. Pat. No. 5,636,925 which describes a heavy-duty bag of the type forming the subject matter of the present application and which was developed to contain granular products in quantities of from about 25 lbs to 40 lbs (pounds). More specifically, this bag was developed to contain granular salt pellets which are used in water softeners. These bags are typically manufactured from extruded linear low density polyethylene and low density polyethylene plastic film in a tubular form and the upper and lower open ends of the tube are heat sealed in a conventional manner to provide a strong and durable closure at the top and bottom of the bags with one of the seals be...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0005]It is a feature of the present invention to provide a heavy-duty plastic bag which is adapted to contain a granular product and which is provided with an easy tear perforated corner spout portion having a tear line profile which provides for an improved pour time over prior art bags of the same type.

Problems solved by technology

One of the problems with these corner tear spout portions is that they are relatively difficult to tear by hand.

However, with the straight line profiles of some of these tear tabs the transition zones of the straight line perforations are too abrupt and therefore because the tear strength of the plastics material is lowest in the machine direction, the tearing may not follow an abrupt transition zone and continue to tear in the machine direction causing a large irregular tear opening resulting in spillage of some of the contents and making it difficult to pour the contents.

This can be a fairly hazardous task for the female gender or older individuals having stability problems or weak muscular frames.

Other disadvantages of prior art bags is that some of these are not provided with handle portions making it even more difficult to manipulate the bag while dispensing the granular product from the corner spout opening.

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