Updated July 2022. I have had these bags for a couple of years now, and even ordered again so I could use them for more items and to give them to friends. They have never let me down.These arrived undamaged and with barely any odor. Within one day the faint PEVA odor was gone. The zipper is water-tight and air-tight. The zipper is easy enough to open and close even when the bag is stiff from being in my freezer where I mostly use them. The key is to gently use your fingers to push the zipper apart near the middle, rather than yanking apart the top edges as one can with a thin zipper bag. Before sealing these bags I can squeeze out a fair amount of air, although not as much as I can from a thin zipper bag (because due to their thickness these bags do not conform as well to the contents).I use these primarily to store frozen single-serving portions of cooked meat in the freezer. (I cook a large batch of meat, cool it, portion it, freeze on a sheet pan, and then pop off and put in the bags in the freezer.) I also store uncooked portions of seafood. This means that I open each bag once or twice a week.I've washed these bags several times with great success. I use a soft bristle bottle brush to gently scrub the inside of the bag while it's submerged in warm sudsy water (not hot). There's no need to turn inside out which is likely to damage the seams. After washing a bag that I've used to store a lot of a very strong smelling item (elderberries, garlic) *for a long time* a bit of the smell remains. This is not a surprise. And I don't find it a problem because in those rare cases I just reuse the same bag for the same type of item.