an apparatus for removing dust - containing or hazardous material from bags includes a vertical bag feeding chute having one or more vertically disposed knife blades fixed in the chute to slice open the bag as it falls through the chute . the sliced bag is caught in a downwardly angled perforated basket disposed below the bag feeding chute where an operator operating through a glove box removes solid material from the interior of the sliced bag after most of the bag contents have fallen through the perforated receiving basket and into a mixing tank . the apparatus is particularly useful for debagging acrylamide monomer in the production of polyacrylamide homopolymers and copolymers .