Stretch film thickness: what do the microns change?

Microns and gauge

Stretch film thickness is given in microns (µm, thousandths of a millimetre); in North America it is often given in gauge, where 80 gauge is about 20 µm. See microns and gauge. Stretch wrap film is typically 10–30 µm thick, according to the European Commission's cargo securing guidelines; pre-stretched films are much thinner.

What thickness changes

The link between weight and length is direct: at the same density, halving the thickness doubles the length of film in a kilo. The formula is in roll length and weight.

Thicker is not automatically stronger

How well a load is held depends on the force the film applies to it, and that force comes from how far the film is stretched, how many times the load is wrapped and the quality of the film, not from thickness alone. In a 2025 laboratory study of pallet stretch films (Tkaczyk et al., Sensors), the stabilising force rose linearly with the number of wraps, and a thinner 15 µm high-quality film gave the most holding force per gram of film (about 0.31 N/g, against about 0.27 N/g for a standard 23 µm film).

How to choose the thickness

• Load weight and shape: heavy loads and sharp corners call for tougher film, or corner protection.
• Wrapping method: by hand, on a wrapper with powered pre-stretch, or with pre-stretched film?
• The journey: a long road journey with braking, cornering and vibration demands more of the wrapping than moving a pallet across a warehouse.
• Cost per pallet, not per kilo: compare the film used per pallet, not the price per kilo.

Thickness on a rewinding machine

The thinner the film, the more sensitive it is to tension: pulled too hard it stretches or breaks, too gently and the roll winds loosely. Servo tension control helps here: on the SM-1300 2S two servo motors control unwinding and rewinding independently, and the SP-1400 uses three and has produced film as thin as 4 µm in tests. Öncümak's SR-1500, SM-1300 and CR-1700 models process films from 8 to 35 µm.