Adorable 'Recycling Grannies' Crochet Plastic Bags Into New Items

These adorable, eco-friendly women known as the ‘Recycling Grannies’ brilliantly crochet plastic bags into new items to help those less fortunate.

Nannette and Ethel are famous in their local community for the beautiful creations that make out of plastic. “All these bags that we’ve working with, they’re not going to be going into the landfill or be thrown away anywhere,” says Nannette.

The way that these ladies create these items is by turning plastic bags into plastic yarn, also known as “plarn.”

“Anything that you can make with a regular piece of yarn, we make with our plarn,” Nannette explains. “Besides being environmentally friendly, it’s durable. It will last forever. It makes a very, very strong product. Whatever you’re making, like the shopping bags, it will hold a lot of groceries. And it cushions the groceries.”

The Recycling Grannies explain that they don’t remember exactly how they were exposed to crocheting with plastic bags, but they know that they started over 25 years ago. Their only limitation of what they can make out of plarn is their imagination!

The two decided that they could use this talent of theirs to bring some good to those in need.

“I read an article about people making sleeping mats for the homeless out of plarn, and I thought, ‘Oh my goodness! I can do that.’ So, we both started mats for the homeless,” shares Nannette. “And in those mats we incorporated fishing line that people retrieved from the ocean. We took it home, we washed it, we bleached it, we detangled it, and we incorporated it into the sleeping mats.”

What an inspiring duo these two are! They are doing their part to help the environment as well as helping those who are in need. May we all follow Nannette and Ethel’s lead and look for ways that we can also help make the world a better place.