If you’re thinking of the most inexpensive way to package gift items for your clients or colleagues, think paper bags. Even better, go for paper bags that are environmentally friendly to show your sensitivity to conserving the environment.

Paper bags can be used for a variety of purposes, which include packaging food in snack bags or packing promotional items together to make gift bags. Paper bags don’t have to be bland. They can be beautifully designed using exciting colours to give them a touch of flair and style.

The ideal paper for making paper bags depends on what you want to do with the bags. Aesthetics, smoothness and toughness are some of the qualities desirable in a paper bag, and so the material used must be appropriate for the type of paper bag you have in mind.

Regardless of the material you choose, branded paper bags are handy marketing tools that can carry a company’s brand and logo to places the traditional marketing strategies cannot reach. As you consider the various types of paper bags on offer, think of what you want to package in them, the message you want to send, and, of course, the aesthetics.

Below are six most popular types of paper used for making paper bags:

1. Kraft Paper

Kraft paper is a commonly used type of paper for paper bags. This material is made of softwood sulphate, a thick light-brown, yellowish-brown, white or cream paper-making material with a weight of between 80 and 120 grams. The tensile force of kraft paper is high. It comes in variations of no-grain, single or double light, or stripes. It’s used to primarily package envelope bags, portfolios, medical records bags, and so forth. It’s also ideal for packaging food takeaway.

2. White Cardboard

This material features a combination of a single layer or multi layers comprised of fully sized, bleached chemical pulp. Its texture is firm while the surface is smooth. Among the various paper bag-making materials in the market, imported white cardboard is more widely used.

If you’re looking for top-of-the-range gift boxes or bags, they will most likely feature imported white cardboard. These make for very appropriate giveaways or promotional items for clients who expect a slightly higher quality.

3. Coated Paper

This material is ideal for making cartons, labels, cigarette cases and other types of packaging. Paint and copper plate base paper are the main materials used. Auxiliary materials, adhesives, and pigments are converted into coatings to cover the paperboard’s surface using special equipment.

They are then dried and calendered, leaving behind a clean, smooth surface that makes for a superior printing performance. The grammage (paper thickness or weight) is between 70 and 250 grams.

4. Offset Paper

The surface of this paper bag-making material is smooth and white, although the coated paper is smoother, whiter and tighter. If you’re looking to print multi-coloured or monochromatic texts, maps, book covers, colour trademarks, pictorials, posters, or inserts, this paper material fits the bill. Its branding potential means it can be customized to reflect the good image of your company.

5. Recycled or Eco-friendly Paper

This material is made from waste paper or biodegradable waste from certain manufacturing processes. Instead of throwing paper waste away, it’s recycled and manufactured into paper products. It’s highly recommended for most types of paper bags since it is eco-friendly.

Sugarcane bagasse, the pulp waste left after extracting sugar from sugarcane, is another environmentally friendly paper-making material. It’s highly recommended for the manufacturing of wraps, covers, bags, tubes, and stretch film. The fact that this material biodegrades extremely fast is another reason you might want to consider paper bags made from it.

Every time we use paper bags made from recycled paper or biodegradable waste, we conserve the environment. It means fewer trees are cut down to manufacture paper. A gift of such a paper bag speaks volumes about your contribution to conserving the environment.

6. Newsprint Paper

Although primarily used to print newspapers, newsprint also makes beautiful paper bags that clients love. While the quality of this material is not as high as others since the paper doesn’t have to be white, it can be repurposed to make attractive and artistic paper bags that people absolutely love. Besides, although it’s usually not coloured, you can apply colour to it through mass-dying.

When choosing a paper bag to gift to colleagues or as a giveaway to a valuable client, the type of paper material used to manufacture it matters a great deal. A key consideration is the purpose to which the paper bag will be applied.

Since the biggest threat to trees is the manufacture of paper, using recycled paper and biodegradable waste such as sugarcane bagasse is an ideal way of making a contribution to environmental conservation. Besides, recipients of paper bag gifts will appreciate the fact that you care for the environment and reward you by recommending your business to others.