Another one of those odd green movements: Plarn. Plarn is yarn made out of plastic grocery bags and occasionally other things like cassette tape innards. You use it like you would regular yarn – knitting, crocheting, etc. When I first read about it, I thought it was a hideous idea (much like ‘freeganism‘) with a weird name but after seeing some pictures of plarn bracelets and handbags, I’m actually kinda impressed (the handbag pictured above is made of plarn, and it can be yours for the low, low price of $55!!! WTF?! I’d never pay that for a purse made out of old Wal-Mart bags. Wal-Mart doesn’t even sell a handbag at that price.).
Not sure I would ever buy anything made from plarn, but I applaud the ‘upcycling’ idea. The fewer of those bags we reuse and recycle the better off our environment will be. If you’re interested in learning how to make your own plarn, click here. Or, buy premade plarn at one of several Etsy shops that sell balls o’ plarn. You can even choose your flavor – Target red & white or Wal-Mart blue & white or even tan and green.
I found a list of shocking facts about plastic bags at Suite101.com:
- Four to five trillion plastic bags are manufactured each year
- Americans use over 380 billion polyethylene bags per year
- Americans throw away approximately 100 billion polyethylene bags per year
- Of those 100 trillion plastic bags, 1% are recycled
- It takes 1000 years for polyethylene bags to break down
- As polyethylene breaks down, toxic substances leach into the soil and enter the food chain
- Approximately 1 billion seabirds and mammals die per year by ingesting plastic bags
- Plastic bags are often mistaken as food by marine mammals. 100,000 marine mammals die yearly by eating plastic bags.
- These animals suffer a painful death, the plastic wraps around their intestines or they choke to death
- Plastic bags choke landfills
- Plastic bags are carried by the wind into forests, ponds, rivers, and lakes
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February 24th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Along those lines, I just got an article from my aunt about this company that makes recyclable bags from agricultural sacs. Thought you might be interested. Also have copied a link to the article.
http://webebags.com/index.html
http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/yhst-64814632804192/Park-City-Magazine-summer-2008.pdf
February 25th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Thanks, Laurie. These are great. I like them better than plarn! May need to feature these in a future post…Thanks again for the tip!
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