For the first half of my latest semester, I got caught up in school; I was extremely busy and I had no time for anything but school work. I didn’t do any upcycling and for a while I didn’t have time to even notice my soul was being crushed but it was.
About midway through the semester, the environmental club I’m apart of asked me to do a project for a creativity fest. If you’re asking yourself what a creativity fest is, then I have terrible news for you because I went and I still have no idea. There was all kinds of people with huge displays I didn’t understand. It was on day when I had so much going on that all I could do was go, set up and tear down before I had to be to my next class. My partner wasn’t too much help either. Our club didn’t give us too much information for what was expected of us, it was supposed to be interactive, which our display really was not, and it was supposed to be creative that’s all I knew. I have a pretty awesome plan for next year, but this year our table was embarrassingly sparse. But this event got me inspired to craft and I really haven’t been without a project since. If you ever ask me to do something like this, just know you’re going to get more than you bargained for. I’m so passionate about the idea of upcycling and educating people about waste, that I just throw myself into that project and go completely overboard. I felt terrible for my partner because I just kept throwing ideas and information at her and I’m sure she was like “……dude, just shut up already.”
Just a few weeks before I learned about the nuisance of plastic bags. And it got me inspired about plastic bags, which has been my main medium since. Below are a few quick facts and hopefully it will inspire you to use less or at least do these crafts with me.
American use 150 billion plastic bags; equals 150 million gallons of gas
· They are difficult to recycle because they’re too lightweight and clog machines; only 1 percent ever get recycled
· They can only be ‘down-cycled’ into something other than bags
· Each year hundreds of thousands of seabirds and marine life die from indigestible plastics mistaken for food.
Source: Garbology by Edward Humes
· Plastic can’t decompose without sunlight. Even with sunlight, plastic can’t ever fully decompose
· A total of 500 billion bags are used world-wide every year. That’s enough to circle around the Earth 4,200 times.
· http://oceancrusaders.org/plastic-crusades/plastic-statistics/
Isn’t that disgusting? So needless to say that was my inspiration for the creativity fest and it will be my inspiration for next year. I’ve learned out to melt them and crochet (somewhat, I’m really trying but I’m a terrible crocheter.) and braided the scraps to use for necklaces. The best part is they’re free and they’re everywhere. Start collecting them people and hopefully over the next week or two I’ll be able to show you how to use them.
serendipitousscavenger 