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***updated plan 10/13/22 with Sam's approval***

WHY CARE ABOUT PLASTIC BAG WASTE?

Though habitat loss and degradation are the primary drivers of the biodiversity crisis, plastic pollution is still a notable threat to biodiversity, especially aquatic life (Woodward, 2022). Plastic pollution especially affects freshwater species, which ingest microplastics and become physically entangled in larger plastics (Azevedo-Santos, 2021). Marine species like seabirds and small invertebrates also consume microplastics, and floating plastics may facilitate the movement of invasive species by providing a mobile place to colonize (Thompson et al., 2009).

One particular notable product is the lowly plastic grocery bag. 160,000 plastic bags are used around the world every SECOND, and only 1% of these bags are recycled according to Waste Management. These plastic bags are notorious for entering aquatic environments and harming organisms, which may ingest or become physically entangled in them. Reports of sea turtles ingesting plastic bags can be found dating as far back as the 1950s. This goes to show that although reusable tote bags are highly popular in activist campaigns, there is still a large volume of plastic bags in production that will need to be dealt with.

ENTER: PLARN

You may be asking yourself: what is plarn? This term describes a thin, continuous strand of plastic, which can be knitted and crocheted into new projects in the same way you would use traditional yarn. My goal for this project is to convert my roommates' plastic bag stash into plarn, create something new with it, and quantify the effects in terms of how many marine organism would be "saved" by keeping this plastic out of their environments.


SOURCES

Azevedo-Santos, V.M., Brito, M.F.G., Manoel, P.S. et al. (2021). Plastic pollution: A focus on freshwater biodiversity. Ambio 50, 1313–1324. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-020-01496-5

Thompson, R. C., Moore, C. J., vom Saal, F. S. and Swan, S. H. (2009). Plastics, the environment and human health: current consensus and future trends. Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society B, vol. 364 (1526). http://doi.org.ezproxy.library.wisc.edu/10.1098/rstb.2009.0053

Woodward, Catherine (2022). 2_1 Thrests: Habitat Loss and Fragmentation [HTML slideshow]. Retrieved from https://courses.botany.wisc.edu/botany_651/lectures/habitat-loss-fragmentation/presentation_html5.html.

PROGRESS POST #1

I officially started making my ball of plarn on Sunday 10/16 using a tutorial from this sustainability blog. I've found that a single plastic bag generates about 1 meter of plarn. I haven't picked a crochet project yet, but I will start with 25 meters and make more later as needed.

Making the plarn is not a complicated process, but it is time-consuming and wears on my fingers after cutting bags for too long. Going forward, I will try cutting 5 bags at a time rather than 10 to avoid injury from the repetitive motion. My main goal for this week is to continue making the plarn, so that I can begin crafting with it next week.

(image: 10 bags' worth of plarn!)

PROGRESS POST #2

This week, one of my goals was to create a metric for measuring how my plarn ball impacts biodiversity. One challenge that I did not anticipate was that many publications do not provide a detailed analysis of the stomach contents they reviewed; many use "plastic" as an umbrella term without listing specific products. I did find some useful data about sea turtles, dolphins, and whales, shown below.

SEA TURTLES

  • An estimated 52% of the world's sea turtle population has eaten plastic

  • Ingesting 1 plastic item = 22% chance of death

  • If 52 of 100 turtles have ingested plastic, and each of them has a 22% chance of dying, it's possible that 11.44 in 100 turtles dies from ingesting plastic

  • Using this ratio of 52 bags killing an average 11.44 turtles, diverting 4.5 plastic bags from oceans could "save" a turtle.

DOLPHINS

  • 2013-2015 data from Queensland government reported that 1 of 56 documented dolphin deaths was due to plastic bag entanglement

  • Diverting 56 plastic bags from oceans could "save a dolphin".

WHALES

  • 1 whale found with 40kg of plastic waste in its stomach (many plastic bags)

  • 1 plastic bag = about 5g

  • Therefore 40kg = equivalent 8,000 plastic bags to "save a whale".

We then have to consider what percentage of plastic bags ACTUALLY enter ocean ecosystems and scale these calculations accordingly. According to TheWorldCounts, a project for raising awareness about the need for sustainability initiatives, an average 10% of plastic products enter ocean ecosystems. Therefore, it's more accurate to say diverting 45 plastic bags "saves" a sea turtle, 560 plastic bags "saves" a dolphin, and 80,000 plastic bags "saves" a whale. All of these animal groups have species on the IUCN Red List, making their conservation efforts all the more critical. These values will allow me to quantify the effects of my personal project, as well as the scaled effects of a larger community plarn project.

PROGRESS POST #3

Since last week, I started my plarn project! I am making a basket with a free pattern found at this blog. It took about 2 hours to create this piece, which is the base of the basket. This week, I will start building the sides of the basket. I plan on using this basket to hold my future plarn stash!

Crafting with the plarn is surprisingly easier than I expected. I did notice that some bags are made of thinner plastics than others, which I found easier to work with. Bags from Target are especially bulky, and I would try cutting them thinner for my next project.

One challenge that I ran into was confusing my TA with the data above where I tried to quantify the impact of this project in terms of "dolphins saved" - sorry Sam! I definitely got a little lost in the sauce trying to make sense of some complex research articles. Going forward, I am going to take Sam's suggestion and look for some articles about the carbon impacts of plastic bags to evaluate my impacts in another way.

Something that surprised me is how much plarn material I can get from a single plastic bag. I have cut up a total of 20 plastic bags, and making the basket base did not use up all of this material like I thought it would. This has also made me consider how crocheting with plarn rather than traditional yarn could be a more accessible way to start crafting; all you need to buy is a hook and some scissors, and you can easily get plastic bags from your home or your friends for free.

I'm excited to have a finished product in the next week or two; I think that when people can see the results of a challenge you've taken on, they are much more inclined to start a conversation about it and take the challenge on for themselves.

WEEK 4: FINAL PROGRESS POST

INTRODUCTION

Single-use plastics are deeply ingrained in our day-to-day lives; the average American brings home a whopping 1500 plastic bags each year (How Many Plastic Bags Does The Average American Use? - Nationwide Plastics). If these bags enter the environment, they pose a direct threat to wildlife, especially marine species who can ingest or become entangled in them. Additionally, the carbon footprint of a single plastic bag is about 0.2 kg CO2 (Time for Change). My goal was to extend the life cycle of these bags by functionally repurposing them, subsequently diverting them from landfills and natural ecosystems. I decided I’d make a plastic-bag-based yarn known as “plarn” out of 50 plastic bags, and crochet this yarn into a basket.

METHODS

Following a tutorial from liveabout.com, I learned how to cut plastic bags into 1-inch strips and knot them into a continuous “thread”. The process is easy, but the repetitive motion started to irritate my hands. I stopped when I reached 20 bags’ worth of plarn, and added more bags to the thread as needed. For my project, I settled on a basket pattern from myrecycledbags.com, and found the plarn surprisingly easy to work with.

RESULTS

I anticipate that my finshed plarn basket will repurpose about 70 plastic bags, which would have produced an estimated 14 kg CO2 emissions when they were first made, according to the previous data from the "Time for Change" website.

Repurposing plastic bags can also directly prevent wildlife mortality, as demonstrated by the data I shared in Post #2. This is particularly relevant to endangered sea turtles and whales.

CONCLUSION AND REFLECTION

I have not achieved my goal yet, but I’m well on my way! I’ve crocheted 25 plastic bags-worth of plarn into my crochet basket. The limiting resource was time; making and crafting with plarn is easy, but time-consuming. Another challenge that I encountered: the handles and the bottom seam of the plastic bags are discarded when you make plarn, which means I need a different way to repurpose this material—maybe Emelia’s ecobricking!

This experience has reminded me that even if our global economy moved away from single-use plastic products, there is already an overwhelming amount of plastic material in existence that needs to be dealt with. It has also emphasized how much the American economy values immediate convenience and maximizing worker productivity over more long-term sustainable choices.

CONCLUDING ESSAY

In this Product Consumption group, we all focused on challenges related to plastic products and textiles. In general, it seems that people who focused on repurposing materials had an easier time reaching their goals relative to people who had to reduce consumption. We all realized that reducing our intake of these products requires major lifestyle changes—both reducing consumption AND repurposing existing waste. There are many ways to mitigate the effects of product consumption, but it’s more difficult to dig into the root of the problem without collaboration with corporations and government agencies, who can influence consumer habits on a larger scale.

Public education to help people engage with sutainability and natural systems could help more people get involved with these efforts. However, there will likely be some people remaining who continue to prioritize saving time and money over sustainability, which is understandable. This is where public policy or other incentives play an important role in asserting the importance of sustainable living. These are typically more difficult to implement than individual actions, but have more wide-spread benefits.

Sources

Brown, H. (2022, September 1). How much does a plastic grocery bag weigh? Nationwide Plastics. Retrieved October 24, 2022, from https://nationwideplastics.net/faq/how-much-does-a-plastic-grocery-bag-weigh.html

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. (n.d.). Retrieved October 24, 2022, from https://www.iucnredlist.org/en

Plastic Bags Used per Year. The world counts. (2022). Retrieved October 24, 2022, from https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/waste/plastic-bags-used-per-year

Queensland;, c=A. U. o=T. S. of. (2017, October 31). Marine Wildlife Stranding Annual Reports. Queensland Government. Retrieved October 24, 2022, from https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/plants-animals/wildlife/marine-strandings/stranding-data/annual-reports

Robinson, M. (2019, March 18). Dead whale found with 40 kilograms of plastic bags in its stomach. CNN. Retrieved October 24, 2022, from https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/18/asia/dead-whale-philippines-40kg-plastic-stomach-intl-scli/index.html

Wilcox, C., Puckridge, M., Schuyler, Q. A., Townsend, K., & Hardesty, B. D. (2018). A quantitative analysis linking sea turtle mortality and plastic debris ingestion. Scientific Reports, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-30038-z