How To Make A Mat Out Of Plastic Grocery Bags

Parents can teach about recycling in the house and how plastic bags take years to decompose.

How to make a mat out of plastic grocery bags.

One easy project appropriate for ages six to adult is weaving a doormat from left over bags. Fold the bag lengthwise in half. Lay a plastic grocery bag flat on a table. Opting to use green canvas bags for your grocery shopping is an effective option but many people still have excess plastic bags lying about the place.

Instead of becoming landfill plastic bags can be used for fun craft projects. It also makes a great addition to any camping trip. In particular plarn can be used as sleeping mats for people. How to make plarn plastic bag yarn the first time i learned about plarn yarn created by cutting and tying together strips of plastic grocery bags was in 2005 when british designer erika knight was a guest on a tv show i used to host called knitty gritty she showed it made using a rainbow variety of bags an array of which i have yet to come across here in the states and knitted into a.

Regardless of who uses it it s a great way to recycle. To make creating the colored rings in the rug easier i took my bags of bags and sorted the various bags into separate colors. The bag ladies as they call themselves also specialize in making large tote bags out of the plastic. While the blue or yellow bags can be mostly sorted together the white bags tend to have accent colors that can come out in the finished rug.

If you don t want your rug to follow a pattern you can skip sorting. Meanwhile in norwalk iowa the mighty mat makers meet once a week at st. These sleeping mats make great supplies for the homeless population allowing them to sleep comfortably wherever they need to. This is a great way to involve your local church group knitting or crochet group youth group or scout organization with collecting and sorting the bags.

So far they have spent at least 100 hours on the project producing 18 mats that have been handed out to the homeless and there are many more to come. A word of forewarning when putting out the call to action for collecting plastic bags be prepared for an avalanche of plastic bags. Cut off the handles and the bottom of the bag with scissors.