Retirees make incredible new creations using hundreds of old plastic bags: 'It's just something I feel I should do'

A volunteer group of retirees is constructing and providing sleeping mats made out of recycled plastic bags for unhoused folks in Tucson, Arizona.

According to News 4 Tucson, the "Mat Makers," as the retirees call themselves, go through a process of flattening, cutting, and weaving old plastic bags to create a substance called "plarn" — a portmanteau of plastic and yarn. People can use this material to crochet items like sleeping mats.

This kind of repurposing of plastic bags is a smart alternative to trying to recycle them.

Ohio Northern University reports that a "2018 National Geographic article … announced that only about 9% of all single-use plastic waste on Earth is actually turned back into a new product. The other 91% is either buried, burned or dumped in the oceans."

Despite good intentions, there are many reasons plastic bags don't end up being recycled. They often become entangled in machines. They can be improperly sorted, and there's simply not much demand for them, per Eureka Recycling.

Dr. Anja Brandon, the Director of Plastics Policy at Ocean Conservancy, said to Family Handyman, "Considering how many plastic bags end up polluting our ocean … and how deadly they are to wildlife, the best thing to do is to avoid plastic bags wherever possible."

But avoiding them altogether, unless they are banned completely, is nearly impossible. A clever idea like making plarn mats for unhoused people is one way to deal with society's mass surplus of the stuff.

People have other creative ways to deal with excess plastic bags like storing them efficiently in repurposed plastic bottles. They've used plarn to make things like baskets, waterproof bags, or even hats.

Donating the mats to people without shelter who need them doubles the benefit of the plarn mats — helping individual people through charity and volunteer work while also keeping the plastic bags out of landfills and oceans.

Tally Partington, one of the Mat Makers, said, "I just want to help. It's just something I feel I should do," according to News 4 Tucson.

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Shana Powell, who received one of the mats, said it was a great barrier against the heat of the ground and was moved by the charity. "It means a lot that someone took time to care," she said.

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