Vinyl is the world’s most versatile plastic, used to make everything from auto body parts to the envelopes and pockets sold by TIE . First patented in 1913, it became the first synthetic product ever patented. Vinyl is composed of two simple building blocks: Chorine based on common salt, and ethylene from crude oil.

Vinyl is often chosen over other materials because of its versatility, strength, durability and its moisture resistance.

The benefits of Vinyl are many, it comes from salt, an inexpensive and renewable resource; it consumes less energy, generates fewer emissions and saves more energy than many competitive products.

TIE products all come in Vinyl. We also offer a Polypropylene on a custom request basis. Below are some of the advantages and disadvantages to what we supply:

1. Vinyl-Rigid is a great material that protects anything it holds.  Its two main characteristics are that it’s waterproof and flame retardant.  Since this material isn’t very flexible, it works great in applications that require strong physical protection of the documents in a harsh or abusive environment. The downside to this material is that if too much weight is placed in the pockets, it will crack and tear because it is a harder more rigid plastic. TIE offers sewn gusseted (accordion type) vinyl envelopes to accommodate heavier or wider material to overcome the cracking and tearing potential.

2.   Vinyl-Heat Sealed has the same characteristics of the rigid except it is much more flexible and softer.  There are special plasticizers added to this material which make it more bendable, but still durable.  It is used in applications where you need the vinyl to “give” a little.  It works great in applications that require a job jacket to hold paper in bulk.  A lot of printing companies use this material because they usually have thick manuals or stacks of paper that need to be handled by many different departments.  The downside to this material is that it is sensitive to UV.

3. Polypropylene’s main feature is its ability to resist paint or ink so it makes it a great material to archive anything that is of importance to you without transferring the ink or paint onto the vinyl itself.  In our industry, some of its uses are for holding photos, kid’s art projects and preserving stamps.