What is non-woven fabric.
Non-woven fabric is bonded rather than woven: fibres fixed into a sheet by heat, pressure or chemicals. It is the material of reusable supermarket bags. This page explains what makes a fabric non-woven and how the bag fabric is made.
The short answerNon-woven fabric is made by bonding fibres or filaments into a sheet with heat, mechanical or chemical means, instead of weaving or knitting them. The international definition, ISO 9092, also excludes paper making. Our non-woven bags are polypropylene.
What makes a fabric non-woven
ISO 9092 and the industry body EDANA define a non-woven as an engineered fibrous sheet given its strength by physical or chemical means. Weaving, knitting and paper making are excluded.
- Thermal bonding: heat fuses the fibres where they cross.
- Mechanical bonding: needles or water jets tangle the fibres into each other.
- Chemical bonding: a binder glues the fibres together.
The fabric in shopping bags
The common bag fabric is spunbond polypropylene. Molten polypropylene is extruded into fine filaments, laid on a moving belt as a web, and bonded with heat.
Weight is given in grams per square metre. Our non-woven bags run from 80 to 180gsm, and the insulated totes from 70 to 100gsm. A gloss or matt lamination protects the print and gives a wipe-clean surface.
Polypropylene carries resin code 5. The code names the plastic. ASTM, which maintains the codes, states that a code does not mean the product is recyclable.
Which weight to choose, how the bag compares with cotton and paper, and what a reuse study found: our guide What is a non-woven bag.
Questions
Is non-woven fabric plastic?
The non-woven in shopping bags is polypropylene, so yes. It is a plastic fabric built for many trips rather than one.
What is non-woven fabric made of?
Fibres or filaments bonded into a sheet. The non-woven in shopping bags is polypropylene.
What is the difference between woven and non-woven fabric?
Woven fabric is made on a loom, with threads or tapes crossing each other. Non-woven fabric skips the loom, and its fibres are bonded by heat, mechanical or chemical means.
What gsm is non-woven fabric for bags?
Our non-woven bags run from 80 to 180gsm. The heavier weights make a stiffer bag that stands open while you load it.
Written by the Bag Bureau production team. Last updated October 2026.