RECICLARTE and Ideas for recycling plastic bottles

A group of my students are entering a big contest to use creativity to solve global warming and are in the final stages of getting their projects ready. Because of all their projects passing through my office, I got to chatting with one of my co-workers today about recycling ideas. She showed me some ideas that she found while looking for ideas for a recyling contest that her kids will enter. I was in awe of the plastic bottle creations at the decorailumina site such as the curtain shown here.

The site's in Spanish, but the pictures speak for themselves. Check out the other projects too: http://www.decorailumina.com/sala/como-decorar-con-botellas-plasticas.html

Yay, now I have a good excuse to eat more cookies (see cookie-wrapper coinpurse post) and drink more soda! Isn't recycling fun!

Goin' on a lana hunt!

My friend Amber messaged me last week asking about where to buy yarn here in Lima. So I offered to take her to some of my favourite local lana shops in the center this past Friday. We called a couple more friends and we were off.

The day began with me spilling diet coke all over my white t-shirt, so it was off to the Indian market to find a new top. I quickly found a beautiful tunic for 25 soles (about $7)... Perfect! There are so many beautiful things in that place and the prices are irresistible. Any ideas for repurposing Indian scarves and bandanas btw? At 2-3 soles each they're hard to pass up, but you can only have so many.

We went all around the galleries surrounding the Mercado Central and found crafter's paradise. Amber found her yarn, I found some beads and findings I was looking for (like a kilo of them) and everyone went home with something interesting.

No pictures this time because the camera's broken... hopefully for the next adventure...

Scientific evidence that knitting mends the soul

I loved this video! Just had to share it. A recent Mayo Clinic study reports on the health benefits of knitting and crochet:


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Progress...

Still collecting bags to get my bags for beds project started. The collection is growing and I now have about 40 bags to work with. It's kind of a blessing that the bags are coming in slowly since I don't have a lot of time to work on the project with grading and such.

Vacation is coming in the beginning of October, which means I'll finally have the free time to really get working on the prototype mat. Little by little, I'm getting the bags I have ready, cutting them into strips and making plarn balls to they're ready to be crocheted.

In the meantime I'm working on little instant-gratification projects like the upcycled cookie wrapper wallet. More to come this weekend...

Cookie wrapper coin purse

I got back home from the bodega with my cookies, psyched to try out the Terracycle wallet project from the NatGeo site. I was curious to see how well the cookie wrappers would fuse together, but I was a little doubtful that it would form a decent fabric to make something I could actually use. I was pleasantly surprised!

I decided that I wanted to use the foil side out instead of showing the label, so I placed the wrappers in between two pieces of copy paper as the instructions said and carefully ironed on low. It fused together really fast!

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I'm not sure if the iron was too hot though, or if I left it on the paper too long, because the plastic crinkled up a bit. I went ahead and used the new "fabric" anyway. I cut off the messy edges and folded the fused fabric into an envelope shape. Since fusing was so easy I fused the whole bottom of the envelope together so I wouldn't have to worry about sewing it together.

I can't follow any pattern without at least changing something, and this was no exception. The instructions for the Terracycle wallet called for scotch tape and velcro, neither of which I had in the house, but I had thread and buttons, so I made due with that. I think the final product turned out pretty good for my first attempt at fusing wrappers.

When I wanted to put on the button, I quickly discovered that the fused fabric is not very easy to sew through. It's a bit easier if you poke the holes first with a pin. Since I was stitching so close to the edges I noticed that the plastic ripped a few times. I assume that this wouldn't be as big a problem with embroidery or if sewing with a machine, but I haven't tried either yet.

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The finished product looks nice and seems pretty durable. The best part is that I know that those two wrappers were put to a good use instead of going in the trash! (... and that I got a great excuse to eat more cookies!)

A great excuse to eat cookies

In my email this morning I got an article about an American company called Terracyle that recycles empty food wrappers into useful products like backpacks, shower curtains, pencil cases and folders then sells them in large chain stores across the U.S.

The Terracycle site is full of great products made from completely recycled materials, and links to an online store where you can buy them. http://www.terracycle.net/ My only complaint is that they only ship within the states. I guess if I want ecofriendly upcycled stuff like theirs I'm just gonna have to make it myself!

After looking around a bit I came across the instructions for turning a cookie wrapper into a wallet. http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/earth-day/4314/Overview44#tab-cookie-wrapper-wallet What a great excuse to eat cookies! I've gotta try this project, so I'm off to the bodega to pick up a couple packs...

Off to a slow start...

Well I've been collecting bags from friends and co-workers for a couple weeks, but so far I've only got about 30. I've started cutting the bags into loops and joining chains to make the yarn needed to crochet. I'm on my first ball of "plarn" but I can't do much more until I get more bags.

I've sent out emails and I've had some offers to help on facebook, so it's just a matter of waiting...

Bring on the bags!

I received an article from a crochet newsletter a few months ago that mentioned using old milk bags to crochet sleeping mats for people in impoverished countries and I was really interested in the idea. I immediately started googling info and with the help of Rachel whose email I found on http://plasticisrubbish.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/knitting-with-plastic-bags/ I was able to find quite a bit of information about getting a recycled bags for beds project going. I even found out that this project originally started in my hometown in Canada, definitely something to be proud of!

I thought that this type of project had real potential here in Peru, and while we don't have milk bags we have pretty thick bags from Saga and Ripley, the two big department stores here. I've found that both stores give out bags like there's no tomorrow so it shouldn't be hard to find people with large stashes of bags to contribute to the project.

Now it's time to start collecting bags to start making bag "yarn", make a pattern and see exactly how many bags it's gonna take to make the first mat. My guess is probably about 100 bags per mat, so that's my immediate goal... 100 bags to start. Hopefully by next weekend I'll have the bags I need to get started.

Are you a lana luva?

Lana luva... I know it's kind of a strange name, so I guess I should explain.

First off, I have a great appreciation for the Spanglish language, especially colloquial Spanglish, as it comes in so useful in my day to day, living and teaching in Peru. I wanted to make my blog a place that can share my hobbies, passions, and all sorts of creative endeavors with likeminded folk from around the globe, but I couldn't imagine creating a blog without including a Spanglish element. Since I really love lana (Spanish for yarn/wool) I created the lanaluva blog.

I'll try to refrain from blogging in Spanglish on a regular basis... but no promises!

It's about time!

That's it! After a few years of following others' blogs and sites, I've set off to start my own blog full of all my little passions and obsessions. Knitting, crocheting, crafting... all things creative and hands-on.