Rubber Band Uses: Office Supplies, Classroom and Craft Supplies, Kitchen and Outdoors

Publicado por Emily Collins en 10 de noviembre, 2026

We've had customers use our rubber bands to make purses, clothing and bags. What will your adventure be? Most people file rubber bands under office supplies, but they end up doing a lot of small jobs outside the office too, from bundling cash at the register to holding a trash bag on a 95-gallon cart. Below are the common ones, sorted by where they happen, with the PlasticMill band we'd pick for each.

Office rubber bands for mail, files and money

In an office, rubber bands mostly sort mail (by day, by customer or by route), hold stacks of file folders together and work as money bands for bundling cash at the end of the day.

Colored rubber bands make this easier. A bright band is easy to find in a drawer or a mixed supply box, and color-coding doesn't work when every bundle is the same tan.

On a desk, a #33 rubber band (3 1/2" x 1/8") is all you need. We'd grab the 1 lb pack of 500. It's sized for steady use, so you're not reordering all the time. There are 15 solid colors, and the 1 lb pack also comes in forest green and a multicolor mix.

If latex matters in your office, stick to solid #33 colors other than brown; they're synthetic rubber, so there's no latex in them. Brown is natural rubber, and the multicolor mix has brown bands in it, so keep both out of the shared drawer.

Heavy duty rubber bands for the warehouse

Packing stations go through bands fast. They keep the papers and folders that travel with an order in one bundle, mark packages so they're easy to tell apart, hold thick stacks and big items together and keep cords coiled.

We'd use #64 rubber bands here. They're 3 1/2" x 1/4", twice as wide as a #33, and made for heavy-duty industrial, warehouse and large-item bundling. You can get a 1 lb pack of 250, or a small 100-count box on Amazon. Crews that mostly use #33s should look at the 1,000-count #33 bag, which is made for warehouse and industrial work too.

Rubber bands at home and in the kitchen

At home, rubber bands (or elastic bands, if that's what you call them) close up open food bags, hold produce together, gather flowers and keep little things from scattering around the pantry, a junk drawer or the closet. You don't need a special kind. The same #33s from your desk do the job. Roll the top of an open snack bag down, put a band around it, and it stays shut:

Classroom and craft supplies

Teachers go through them sorting classroom supplies and keeping caddies stocked. Crafters use them for tie dye, gift wrap, keeping supplies together, and building balloon garlands and balloon arches. Colored rubber bands in either size work for tie dye and as balloon arch rubber bands, and the multicolor #33 pack gets you a mix of colorful rubber bands in one bag.

Outdoor rubber bands for mailboxes and gutters

Regular rubber dries out in the sun and eventually cracks. Outside, use UV-rated black rubber bands. Ours are EPDM rubber bands made for outdoor use on mailboxes, garden stakes, gutters and outdoor bins. The #33s come in a 100-count bag, a 1 lb pack of 500 or a 1,000-count bag. For a wider band, black EPDM #64s come in a 1 lb pack of 250 on plasticmill.com or a 100-count box on Amazon.

Garbage can rubber bands

A jumbo band goes over the rim of the trash can and holds an oversized bag up, so the liner can't slip down inside. People also use them when moving furniture or bundling big items. The 23" blue bands fit 48- to 65-gallon carts, and the 30" orange and natural bands fit 64- and 95-gallon carts. The blue and orange bands come in packs of 5 or 25, and the natural ones in a 5-pack. Our rubber band size guide lists exactly which carts each one fits.