Knitted Recycled Plastic Bag

Today is Blog Action Day and the blogging world is joining together to post about the environment.

Coincidentally, I gave my good friend EM a homemade bag knitted from plastic bags, for her birthday today. I used a pattern from The Purl Bee for a tote that is perfect for grocery shopping when knitted up in cotton. I had a few snafus thus made some minor pattern changes and my bag looks entirely different than the cotton version. I don't think that it will fit a lot of groceries but it could make a good beach bag, as EM suggested.

Plastic bags take a lot of energy to make, see the Environmental Literary Councils article on “Paper or Plastic”. We use them once then they fill up our landfills and are not biodegradable. You are actually doing double duty when you RECYCLE the plastic bags that you have and you make a NEW bag to take on your next trip to the grocery store.

Making Recycled Plastic Bag Yarn:
1. Collect plastic bags in all colors. You need a ton of bags so collect them from friends too.

2. Lay the bags flat and cut <1>s of plastic. I suggest 3/4" for really thin plastic and 1/2" for the sturdy thick stuff.

3. Chain the loops together in a color pattern of your choice. I made dark blue out of GAP bags, forest green out of B&N and The Body Shop bags, and white from the plain ol’ grocery store bags.

4. Knit following the instructions for “Elise’s Nest Tote” on The Purl Bee.

photo credit: TEB 10.15.07