Recycling Plastic Bags Into…Beautiful Handbags

Here at Green Prophet we regularly publicize the bigger recycling initiatives around the country that we hear about, like our recent posts on Plastic Bags & Art Recycling , Smell the Recycled Roses, and Abu Yoyo: Closing the Loop in Banner Advertising.

While we hope these large scale inspiring projects keep coming, and we salute the artists, entrepreneurs and facilitators who lead the way by educating, elevating our minds and impressing us, while reusing loads of our thrown out garbage, it is important to note smaller personal projects, taking place every day in small ways in many homes and businesses across the land, and around the world.

I’m proud to share with readers one such that recently birthed in my home recently: a handbag (pictured above) made from left over wool and plastic bags in which magazines and letters arrive (also, I think a bag that Dod Moshe’s Negev-grown carrots were once in is in there somewhere). My partner Tania, a highly experienced knitter, cut several hundred bags into strips and weaved these between the wool to create this highly versatile and eye-catching little number, which is attracting lots of attention every time it graces the (now bag free) streets.

Says Tania of her motivation to create the bag:”We stopped getting plastic bags from shops, but I realised I would have to do something constructive with all the plastic bags that come into the house in other ways.” She knits for half an hour or so a day, usually while keeping one eye on the latest episode of ‘Law & Order’ or ‘The Sopranos’ (I think one of these bags would really suit Carmella or Meadow….), and while I’m sat at the computer thinking or reading or writing about recycling things!

We hope you’ll forgive us blowing our own trumpet just this once, and here’s an invitation: write in and tell us about any similar recycling initiatives you have started at home, at work, or at school or university. We’re all ears, and we’ll try to give you the publicity you deserve! (And any extra resources you might need).

Author: James Murray-White

Growing up in a green village outside Cambridge, UK gave me an eye into the natural world, and years later, after being an actor, dramatist, weary traveller and anthropologist, the environment fires me up the most – and the need to save and nurture it… while we live within it. I now live in the UK, with partner Tania and 2 pesky cats – writing and filming the world (slowly making a documentary about the Bedouin situation) take up my creative time. I do this while growing things organically and composting profusely take up the remainder. James can be reached at james (at) greenprophet (dot) com.

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