The City of Edmonds recently joined other cities in banning single-use plastic bags. Little did they know, remarkably resourceful recyclers in our  community have already been hard at work transforming plastic bags for good.

Gabriele shows what can be made with recycled plastic bags.

Long before the plastics debate, Gabriel Raudebaugh at Trinity Lutheran Church was recycling plastic bags to generate financial support for their international outreach program in Nicaragua. Trinity’s Sowing Seeds of Hope group is helping develop a sewing cooperative in Nicaragua. The  cooperative helps women generate income for self-sufficiency, improved health and education for themselves, their children and their communities.

Just imagine, plastic bags are transforming lives instead of landfills.

When you see Sowing Seeds of Hope recycle kits and products at the Edmonds Saturday Market be sure to support them.  You’ll find crocheted totes. Luggage handles. Eyeglass holders. Table runners. All from recycled materials. Purse kits are packaged in recycled newspaper delivery bags. Plastic bags have been washed, cut and cleverly stuffed in empty paper towel tubes, ready to be knit or crocheted into artful multi-use bags.

Intern Ari McPhearson models the award-winning recycled plastic bag hat

Ari MacPherson, Fabric of Life Foundation intern, models the latest in recycled styles. (Can you guess which store’s plastic bags?).  This charming creation by Trinity Church member Fern Thompson, won best of show at Mountlake Terrace’s recycling festival.

Recycling for a purpose. Has a nice ring to it.

When we opened the Fabric of Life Foundation’s fair trade boutique in Edmonds, we made a point of locating used store fixtures.  Just about everyone I know uses Craigs List. Have you seen Freecycle (”Changing the world one gift at a time.”)

The tents we set up on the roof came from Craigs List. The toaster in our shop came from Freecycle.  Okay, so only one side of the toaster works.  Big deal.  We seem to be obsessed with new and improved.  I remember a potential donor once said to me, “I know  you don’t spend money unnecessarily; I’ve seen your car“.  Hey, it gets me where I want to go, despite her 180,000 miles.  What are a few dents if I arrive safely at my destination? Who needs windows to go up and down anyway? Whatever happened to functional?

If you want to see clean go visit a rural African village.  Not a spec of trash. But then, naturally grown food has no packaging. And when your wealth is in relationships there is no trash.  When I travel to new places I bring a poloroid camera to take photos to give away and a digital camera for my own photos.  In a rural village in Uganda I recall putting an empty poloroid cartridge into the trash.  The next morning I found the cartridge propped against a window ledge ~ with a photo neatly tucked into it.

A woman who likes to shop in our store explained she was having a giveaway party. She descriibed that sometimes things of beauty need to be passed on because they no longer belong to her.  She hosts a party to which everyone brings a favorite treasure they want to pass along for someone else to enjoy.  What a lovely idea.

I think we’ll start putting out a table in front of our shop so people can exchange their old treasures.  And we’ll use hand crocheted reuseable plastic bags for people to carry off their new treasures.

It’s after midnight here in Seattle.  My tent beckons me.