Plastic Bag Rugs
~ Promoting Responsible After-use of
Plastic Bags ~
When my children were young, I used to drive them from our home in Posey County, Indiana to a camp in Southern Illinois. While making the trip, year after year, I would see plastic bags caught in the trees along the road. I wondered what I could do to make a statement, to turn something as unsightly as a "bag in a tree" into something usable. After some experimentation, I came up with a technique to attach handle bags together so that they could be woven into outdoor rugs. Many of these "bag-in-a-tree rugs" are being used to educate children about recycling.
At Homestead Weaving Studio, we believe the future of the planet is in our hands. We practice recycling in our personal lives and in our business. We specialize in making rugs from recycled material, reclaiming industry scrap and turning it into beautiful, affordable art while helping the environment by keeping usable goods out of landfills.
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This rug uses an assortment of different color bags. It is woven on cotton poly carpet warp in various shades of blue. It was part of the Indiana Recycled Art Show in 2005 and is now being used to educate about recycling. |
| This rug was made entirely with blue HDPE#2 bags from Wal-Mart. |
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This rug was made from the
plastic bags
The warp is fine polyester and very strong.
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I was first inspired to make rugs from plastic bags after seeing bags caught in branches of trees along the road ... for years and years.
The large bag on the lower right is from the Brown
County Recycle Center. It's about 15 pounds of plastic bags that residents
have turned in to them for recycling and they, in turn, have given to me for
reuse as rugs. |
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Interested in weaving your own plastic bag rug? Here are instructions explaining how I do it.
Interested in purchasing one of my woven ones? Here are pictures and prices:
Comments? Email me