Plastic bags are one of the worst things for the environment that we can think of. Research suggest that 500 billion to one trillion plastic bags are consumed each year. And only one city in the United States has banned their use in markets and pharmacies—San Francisco.
So, they aren’t going away. But what can we do with them to make them more useful and keep them out of landfills?
You can make plastic bag yarn!
(pic courtesy of hellejorgensen.typepad.com)
You can then use it to knit, and even make clothes and bags from it! They’ll be waterproof! Consider using plastic bags from your old shopping trips to knit a tote for a new way of shopping! We promise, you will be forgiven for all the bags you used before. You can also make rugs and placemats as well.
You can also make better, stronger totes by fusing bags together to incorporate their designs into a new, better one. The same technique can be used to make an awesome dress like this!
Fusing can be done with a simple iron and parchment paper, but be sure to do a little research before getting melting or you may have some difficulty. Then, the plastic “fabric” can be sewn together into anything you want to make.
Fusing can also make beautiful, funky jewelry and hair accessories.
By making anything from plastic bags—or even carrying them for another use—you help keep these volatile landfill-mongers out of our earth a little bit longer.
Pic courtesy of craftster.org.
I am learning something every day. This method of making things out of plastic is so interesting.
Hi Sandra, yes it’s quite amazing how many eco-friendly uses one can find for plastic bags. We are working on publishing a whole “how-to” series on what you can make out of them.