Changing an ostomy appliance is often pretty straight forward, but disposing of your soiled appliance can be tricky.  

Intro

If you’re at home, you have the option of simply tossing your used appliance in a garbage bag along with other trash, but if you are at a friend’s house or at the office and needed to do an emergency appliance change, you won’t be so lucky.

Most trash bags we use either can’t be sealed effectively, aren’t fully opaque (in the case of a Ziploc bag) or can’t contain odors for very long.

About the Product

Product name: Attiva Seal-N-Toss Ostomy Disposal System
Product #: SNT-1
Dimensions: Approx. 20cm x 28cm (7 3/4″ x 11″)
Quantity per box: 50

The Attiva Seal-N-Toss Ostomy Disposal System is distributed by Ostomy Essentials and works as a heavy-duty, airtight garbage bag for your used ostomy appliance.  

The bag itself is an opaque, heavy plastic that is thicker than a standard black garbage bag, and features a resealable closure that’s more robust than the type you’d find on a freezer bag.

When I’m doing an appliance change, I tend to discard my used appliance into a thin “kitchen catcher” bag that I hang from my pant waist.  

The problem with those bags is that they are thin, and not meant to keep odor in, but they are convenient because of their size.  

I’m fine with using them at home, where I know I can throw it into a garbage bag outside, but I wouldn’t dare use it in public to discard my supplies.

Manufacturers tend to include their own disposal bags with their pouches or one-piece appliances, but they aren’t sealable and tend to be made of thin plastic, so the Seal-N-Toss bags are better in this regard.

How I Use This Product

There’s no magic in using these bags:  Simply drop a used ostomy pouch or other soiled supplies into the Seal-N-Toss, run your fingers along the closure (much like a Ziploc bag), and you’re done.  

At this point, you can throw it in any trash can, and the odor will be contained; you can also keep it with you until a suitable garbage can is found.

I should mention that I use a large, 12″, 2-piece ostomy system, and had no problem fitting it into these bags. With the exception of night-drain bags, you can fit just about any size ostomy pouch into the Seal-N-Toss Ostomy Disposal System – even full pouches.

Do They Work?

Yes, absolutely!  

As an experiment, I decided to put a full ostomy pouch inside one of the Seal-N-Toss bags and left it on my desk for over a week. The result? No smell, no leaks.

I can see these making a great addition to my travel kit, but if you’re someone who is out of the house often (i.e for travel or vacationing), then these could come in handy when you need to change your appliance in a hotel, airport, public washroom, etc.

Conclusion

At the time of this writing (Jan 2022), you can buy the Seal-N-Toss bags for CDN$20 per box of 50.

Currently, it seems that you can only buy these in Canada, although shipping for this product can range from CDN$6.55 – $12.55 depending on where in Canada it’s going to.  

That’s pretty expensive, and this is a product that is NOT covered by most insurance companies.

You can ask for samples through Ostomy Essentials, but I don’t even think that’s necessary for a product like this.

These disposal bags work flawlessly, and I recommend them.

However, since these are not covered by insurance, and they aren’t a necessity, your situation would help to decide whether they’d be a good value for you or not.  

If you’re changing your appliance every 3 days, and use one bag per change, a box will last around 5 months.

If you find yourself needing to change your appliance in situations that make it difficult to throw a soiled pouch out, then they would be handy to keep around.