Crocheting With Plastic Bags
Did you know that in the UK we get through 8 billion plastic bags a year and less that 1% of them are recycled?!
The good news is that you can prevent them from impacting the environment as waste or litter by making useful and beautiful things like coasters, purses and bath scrubbers. These make really nice inexpensive gifts!
You can learn how to make them by following these short ‘how to’ videos from Practical Action – a charity that helps the world’s poorest people to improve their lives.
How to make a coaster from plastic bags
How to make a bath scrubber from plastic bags
How to make a purse from plastic bags
The videos feature waste pickers from Nepal. Dire poverty forces them to make a living from picking through rubbish dumps to find materials they can sell. It’s a hand-to-mouth existence, earning barely enough to feed their family.
Practical Action is training waste pickers like Shanti Mandal to set up their own businesses, making and selling products from the plastic bags they collect. The extra income means they can send their children to school and improve their living conditions.
Shanti said she’d love to give her four-year-old son the option of a better life.
*“For my parents, for me, this is life. There was no school for me. For my son Lalu, I hope he can go to school. It is a better place to be a child than this.
“After I got the training I found out how I can make money out of it. It has benefitted our lives. Before when I worked as a waste picker, I never got paid on time. It used to depend on the scrap dealer’s mood. I hated the job but I never had any other option. I was obligated to work as a waste picker, but now I have had the training I hope to continue making these handicrafts.”*
Find out more about this project and the urban waste pickers in Nepal that they are helping.
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