DIY: Plastic Bag Fabric: Reclaiming Plastic Shopping Bags for Good
by Kathreen Ricketson, Canberra, Australia on 06.21.07
Plastic shopping bags are a scourge on the environment. What to do with all those plastic bags that seem to be just hanging around everywhere. One idea that seems to be a hit amongst the DIY and creative arty crowd is to fuse various plastic bags together and make fabric out of them. The basic process is to iron the plastic bags, with a sheet of baking paper between iron and plastic, until two or more sheets fuse together. Sound easy - well in theory it is, but it takes a little practice to get the timing and heat just right. Once you have it down, you can start experimenting with colours and patterns, using the plastic bag labels as decoration. And then you cut, sew, glue or whatever the plastic fabric together to make all manner of things. Such as this plastic bag wallet at Vestal Design, and Karin Carter's SLiK Nonwovens: Textiles made from recycled plastic bags.
We at TreeHugger love to see new uses for all this rubbish, check out previous posts on making cool things from plastic bags such as Anna Roebuck's designs, plastic bags into chairs, plastic jewellery, or try crocheting plastic bags.
Resources for DIY with plastic bags:
- how to make plastic bag yarn to knit or crochet
- fusing plastic bags tutorial
- upcycling plastic bags video tutorial
Top image: plastic shopping bag dress at flickr, second image: SLiK Nonwovens: Textiles Made from Recycled Plastic Bags, third image: plastic bag rain jacket at etsy.
I just took a great picture of a plastic-bag dress:
http://flickr.com/photos/hatsix/567004618/in/set-72157600395509432/
I have turned our local scourge of plastic bags into useful tools. When out walking, I pick up any bags that I find and use them to collect trash and recyclables for the length of the walk. I get to clean up the bags and the general debris in one fell swoop (i.e. given lemons, make lemonade).
that's a really fabulous idea, but for mayhap one thing:
dioxins and other nasties are often released when plastics are heated and burned. i don't know what kinds of plastic are in flimsy plastic bags (i generally avoid plastic bags altogether) . perhaps folks should be doing this in a really well ventilated, even windy, work area?
lexy
Guys if the baking parchment rips or tears then you will have an absolute mess on the soleplate of your iron and you will not be able to use it to iron your clothes, short if steeping the soleplate in carbon-tetra-chloride to remove the mess.
I am going to try to make a plastic bag wreath in our homeschool class this year. I think the kids will enjoy the craft and they will learn to help save our planet.
we could start a whole style! using bags for dresses is so...vintage. i absolutely love it. next year im going to start a fashion show for these in my hometown of holywood. i tried callijg brittany to see if she'd be in it but rehab is a full time job i guess. well tootles.
I'm mkaing plastic bags with the iron technique, but I keep on getting holes in my bags from the heat I think. (but its on the lowest it can go) And more often than not, when I am taking off my newly made material from the wax paper, the paper will rip and get stuck to the plastic. Anyway to solve this?
You may want to try ironing more layers together (I've heard 6-8 works the best) and leaving it to cool a minute before you take the paper off.
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There you can find everything- I did!