IT’S NOT EASY BEING GREEN: CROCHETED PLASTIC LUNCH BAG

Have you ever opened the doors under your kitchen sink and been buried in an avalanche of suffocating plastic bags? I know I have. It’s always surprising how many of those insidious bags can be crammed into such a small space! After clawing my way to the surface of this mountainous plastic abomination I knew something had to be done. Of course I reuse these bags ad nauseum for all my small trash cans, for car trash bags, lunch sacks and makeshift carry-alls until they are shredded to ribbons, but still they insist on multiplying and I can never quite come out ahead. So, trying to start a greener lifestyle I will stop having my groceries bagged in new bags and combine the hoard of old ones littering the nooks and crannies of my home into something much more useful.

I won’t go into all the details, but suffice to say I separated my bags by color and started cutting away. Cutting and tying and winding. Cutting and tying and winding. Cutting and tying and winding. Etc, etc, etc. Soon I had a decent sized ball of plastic-bag-yarn to work with. Using a size K crochet hook I free-formed a jaunty little lunch bag. It was surprising how many bags it took to make just one lunch bag, but I’m secure in the knowledge that these bags are not going to the landfill and I won’t have to use multiple bags to tote my lunch around in for years to come.


Next I’ll have to try my hand at a market bag, although I wonder if I’ll have enough bags at home to accomplish this with crochet. I have, however, made the permanent switch and bought a few reusable market bags from my local grocery store, but it never hurts to have a few extra market bags for those mega-shopping trips!

http://www.myrecycledbags.com/ is a great website to learn all the tips and techniques for making reusable grocery bags, makeup bags, lunch sacks and so much more, so if this kind of green project interests you by all means take a look-see.

-Lyzard