Electronic – Ziplock Bags: OK for electronics project storage

Are plastic "ZipLock" bags OK for short-term storage of projects?

This is really a question of risk management. If you instead asked:

Will my electronic circuitry always survive short-term storage in food-grade plastic bags?

The answer is no. The plastic used for food is a very good insulator, and will generate static electricity when rubbed up against many materials. It will not allow the safe discharge of static electricity and will not prevent static build up, therefore it may harm electronics placed inside.

However there are many considerations that may change the risk assessment:

• Many parts these days are not very static sensitive. They may work fine after having received several static discharges.
• When mounted to a well designed PCB, most static discharges end up going to a ground lead, and causing little to no damage to the more sensitive components on the board.
• If properly handled (on a static control work surface or with static control wrist bands) then you can safely store and retrieve electronic parts from these bags with little risk of unsafe discharge.
• The parts are inexpensive enough that replacement isn't very costly.
• Many such projects for hobbyist or prototype use aren't safety critical, and so failure of the electronics, while annoying and frustrating, poses little to no risk of injury or property damage. So even if they do become damaged, the type of damage shouldn't become compounded and cause loss of life or limb.

For these reasons, I often tell those who ask this question that it is fine as long as they understand that they are adding a possible source of flakiness and frustration to their environment down the road. They can mitigate that to some degree, but for most casual electronic hobbyists it really isn't going to matter.

For my own part, I do not use them. Static discharges rarely kill a part or product, instead it damages it. The damage may only come into play during certain operations or while using certain pins on the device, and it's often non-deterministic. I don't have the time or patience to figure out the difference between a possibly complex program logic bug and a tiny silicon flaw caused by a static discharge.

If I have to store a project and I don't have static control storage available, I would choose uncoated boxes or paper before I chose a plastic food-grade bag.

If I deal with an unprotected device or assembly that is ever going to be handed off to another person/client/company then I will obtain and use the appropriate static control materials.

But the casual hobbyist use may use plastic bags for decades before ever running into such a problem, so don't over think it.