This weekend phone books arrived on our doorstep. Nearly 800 pages of info we'll never use nor need. Thumbs down for pointless waste.
To add a little more pain they wrapped all the books for our apartment building in shrink wrap. Aaagh!
You can avoid this happening to you, and eliminate waste at the same time. Go to Directory Select.
Enter your street address to see the phone books you are currently set to receive. Highlight the ones you wish to cancel, tick the box and click to cancel. It's really as easy as that.
PS. I was amused that the cover shot shows that computers exist (and that therefore phone books don't need to). It could only be be more ironic if the screen showed the Google homepage. ;)
Last Friday schoolkids around Australia had a half-day strike to protest the lack of climate action by the federal government.
It drew a predictable response (not a listening one) from some government politicians - well summed up in this cartoon by Kathy Wilcox.
Some signs pointed out the irony of the reaction. For example, "If you were smart we'd be in class".
Others pointed out the value of activism:
Or asked why bother going to school if knowledge is rejected by government:
While others tried to appeal the better nature of politicians and think of those who will be left to deal with climate change long after today's politicians have all gone.
In the background a smaller girl is holding a well-coloured-in sign "Don't Burn Our Future. No New Coal"
But this one's my pick for the cutest.
This Saturday it's everybody's turn. If you're in Brisbane, Melbourne or Sydney, join in the "March for our Future". It's not just the kids whose futures are at stake.
What to do with old clothes? Some are technically wearable - but waay out of fashion, or getting a bit old. Some are beyond wearing. What can I do that isn't adding to landfill?
Now there's a recycle option. One that comes with rewards.
Drop-off at H&M stores
Fashion store H&M has a zero waste goal for the clothes (and other textiles) that you drop off in their recycle stations. So far they've taken in the equivalent of 89 million T-shirts for their Rewear, Reuse, Recycle process.
Rewear
Clothing that can be reworn is sent overseas for second-hand use.
Reuse
Textiles no longer suitable to wear are converted into product such as cleaning cloths.
Recycle
Textiles that can't be reused are recycled into textile fibres or used to manufacture products such as insulation materials.
Reward
For each bag of used textiles they'll give you a discount voucher. Mine was 15% off your next item. It may vary for different places or countries. If you don't need it, why not pass it on. It's a chance to brighten the day of a random shopper.
What to do
Up the back of the shop, look for a recycle station like this one.
Here in Australia, states are stepping up to embrace the future of renewable energy. So who's doing the best?
In 2018 Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and South Australia are judged to be the leaders. Let's look at why:
Tasmania
Leading the nation with 87% renewable energy in 2017, Tasmania is an obvious front-runner.
Australian Capital Territory
The ACT has a goal of 100% renewable energy by 2020 - just two years from now - and look to be on track to get there. Their government is also providing battery grants to households to help store solar energy for later use.
South Australia
Already at 43% renewable energy, South Australia has the largest energy battery in the country and is planning more. The forecast is that they'll have about 73% within 2 years.
The sunshine state?
My home state of Queensland is listed as "catching up" with a 50% renewable energy target (for 2030). We have the nation's highest percentage of homes with solar, though this is more because of the great weather rather than any government action.
Other snippets
69 wind and solar plants are under construction in Australia right now - creating almost 10,000 jobs.
These projects will add seven times the capacity of the now-closed Hazelwood coal power station.
Of the 69 renewable energy projects, Queensland has the most with 20. (Vic 19, NSW 18)
There are now 26 suburbs where the majority of homes have solar. 19 of these suburbs are in Queensland.
Queensland and Victoria are home to 65% of renewable energy jobs
What's happening globally?
Last year more solar PV capacity was added than coal, natural gas and nuclear combined.
Almost three-quarters of new energy generation capacity is renewable.
Electricity generation from coal and gas fell for the fifth year in a row.
17 countries generated more than 90% of their electricity with renewable energy.
Dresden's new store opens in Brisbane tomorrow, 6 November. I've been in touch with them and here's a sneak preview of the new (recycled) frames they will launch when the Brisbane store opens.
And of course, they are also available as prescription sunglasses.
I'm told they're made out of recycled wood fibre. Not 100% sure what that means, but I'm sure there'll be more details when they're officially launched.
Where can I get them?
The Brisbane store will be at 4/173 Boundary Street, West End. Their number is 3846 5958.
What else do they have?
They also have a limited-edition range of frames "made of money". Yes, they're literally made from recycled off-cuts and waste from the polymer banknotes.
Any normal glasses?
There's also the standard range of frames made from coloured recyclable plastic. These ones have interchangeable arms so you can mix and match your colours. It's like lego for your face ;)
Queensland's Container refund scheme starts 1 November. It's great for the planet, for people and for community groups. Here's why.
Quick stats
3 billion containers are used in Queensland each year. They make up 23% of our waste. Even with kerbside recycling, the majority end up as litter or in landfill.
We recycle only about 30% of our containers. In South Australia (who've had a container deposit scheme for years) the rate is 80%.
Clearly a cash-for-containers scheme is a good idea. Queensland's will be called Containers for Change.
What's the deal?
From 1 November there will be 250 refund points (see the map) where you can receive 10 cents for every eligible container - including aluminium cans, glass bottles, plastic bottles and some drink cartons.
Reverse vending machines
Some refund points will be reverse vending machines - like the demo one I showed earlier (see the video). These are literally what they sound like - you give a container and get money. Each container has its barcode scanned. If the barcode matches an eligible container you get paid.
Depots and drop off points
There will also be places you can take containers to and drop them off. The advantage of these (other than not having to feeding all your containers into a machine) is that even if the aluminium cans are squashed, and the barcode isn't readable, they are still accepted.
How does it work for community groups?
After litter reduction and more recycling, the third aim of the scheme is to help community groups. People can donate their containers to the local sports club, scouts, church or school - and that organisation can receive the refund.
This can be done by physically donating the container or by a virtual donation. Either way, the first step for a community group is to register and get an ID number (this is how you get paid).
Virtual donations
Publicise your ID number through your community group. When your members return their containers they can quote the community group's ID number and the refund is paid to the community group's bank account.
Physical donations
In this case people donate the actual containers at your scout hall, soccer club or church hall. Somebody from the group can return them in bulk to a refund point. Again, they quote the community group's ID number and the refund goes to the group's bank account.
At my local school they've got small wheelie-bins bins ready to go. (You can get the logos and everything when you join).
The logistics of this depend on how big your operation will be. Many refund points will be able to give you a large bag for collecting your containers, and a tag with your group's ID. If you're thinking bigger than that you may want to get a lockable cage where people can drop off containers any time of the day.
If your group is having a big event, it may be a good idea to contact your local refund point in advance and they may be able to help.
So what are the next steps?
Once you community group decides to do this, go online and register and promote you group's ID to your members.
Then, if you want to do physical collection, get in touch with you local refund point.
Any questions, just pop them in the comments below.
Happy recycling and happy fundraising.
PS. This information is based on the seminar by ContainerExchange - the organisation running the scheme. For further details go to Containers for Change or to ContainerExchange.
If there's anything worse than a government failing to cut pollution, it's a government covering up the failure.
People in the media have noticed a pattern in the way Australia's government releases the national emissions data.
It's very slow and it seems to be released at a time when it will get little attention. Mostly it's late on a Friday afternoon - too late for the news bulletin. Or just before the biggest sports weekend of the year.
One year they even did it on Christmas Eve.
Why is it so?
Paul Barry reckons it's deliberate. To avoid the government getting awkward questions about why emissions increasing when urgent reductions are needed. Questions like how on Earth Australia can even reach our (rather weak) goal of 26% less pollution by 2030 while pollution is rising.
The government says that ministers "considers briefs for a period of time". But for those periods of time to always end late friday - or on Christmas Eve is a staggering coincidence.
This year's Climate of the Nation survey (a great name for people's opinions around climate change) has some very interesting - and some surprising results.
Lots of concern
When asked if they we concerned about climate change and its impact of drought, the Great Barrier Reef and bushfires around three-quarters said yes.
Fewer deniers
At the other end of the scale there's a shrinking number of people do don't even agree the climate change is happening. The vast majority of Aussies accept that it is happening. The results are shown by which party the people vote for.
Even for parties that have non-scientific views, their supporters seem to be accepting the climate science.
Favourite power
People were asked their 3 favourite energy sources. The top 3 were all renewable resources and solar was the clear favourite.
What to do about coal?
49% say we should stop building any new coal mines or expanding any existing ones. Only 20% disagree with this view.
How quickly should coal go?
About two-thirds of Aussies think we should stop using coal with 20 years. More than a third reckon it should be within 10 years.
Coal industry less important than we think
Aussies were asked how many people coal employs. Those who answered overestimated by a factor of more than 25. The jobs in coal are 25 times smaller than we think.
The same goes for money. When asked how much coal contributes to Australia's GDP, people's average estimate was 10.9%. It's not even a tenth of that. The true answer is just one percent.
While the coal industry makes some noise, the reality is that it's just not worth as much as we may think.
Who should pay the bill?
59% of people support a levy on fossil fuel exports to help the community prepare and protect from the consequences of climate change. Only 19%
oppose this idea.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this idea is even more popular among younger people - those expected to have to live with the consequences for longer.
Overall it's good news that Australians want to take action on climate change. Hopefully politicians can reflect this desire in their actions.
A lot of greenhouse emissions come from companies. Often they state their emissions in the annual report. But sometimes they're a bit tricky about it.
What's the trick?
It's a little thing called emissions intensity. Intensity is a company's carbon footprint divided by how much business it does.
Why is it used?
It's a handy way to compare different-sized companies in a similar industry. A larger company may pollute more but (for its size) be cleaner than its competitors in terms of pollution per customer, or per item made.
How can it be mis-used?
A company with a range of products may report emissions per dollar of revenue.
For example, a T-shirt that causes 20kg of emissions and costs $20 has an emissions intensity of 1 kg/$.
If the price goes to $25, the emissions intensity becomes 0.8 kg/$ - an apparent 20% reduction even though nothing has changed except the price.
It's very tempting for companies to use this figure in annual reports.
24% or just 4%
Telstra this year reported a 24% decrease in carbon intensity - measured per petabyte of data transmitted (a petabyte is a million gigabytes).
I wasn't fooled. It sounded good, but I wanted more info. Their total emissions are down - but by just 3.9%. Not bad. But nowhere near 24%.
So while the total greenhouse emissions are only slightly decreasing (the green bars in the graph) the carbon intensity (the numbers in the circles) give a far rosier picture.
Does this seem like a scam to you?
In this graph alone, data (green line) almost tripled. "Intensity" can trick shareholders and customers us into thinking we're making huge progress - while we continue to pollute as much as before (sometimes even increasing our pollution).
Personally I think yearly emissions should be reported as tonnes of carbon pollution. Intensity should only be used to compare with other companies in the industry.
Are you a shareholder?
If you're going to an AGM, why not ask a question about your company's emissions?
I raised the question at a recent Telstra shareholder meeting - asking about actual emissions rather that intensity. the representative couldn't even tell me whether emissions had gone up or down in the past year. We need to get this on their radar.
PS. I also asked another question. Subscribe to be notified when I write about that.
Today is the start of the "eco coffee cups" deal at Toowong Village.
So what's the deal?
Spend $10 at the shopping centre to get a free re-usable coffee cup - and a bonus free coffee. There's a limit of one 1 per person per day, so if you want a cup for every person in your office, that will take a while.
Is there a catch?
Not really - except for the choice of designs (but you may like them). Collection times are 9am-6pm while stocks last. Just take your receipt (on the same day) to the info desk on the basement level for your free cup.
Is it really free if I have to make a $10 purchase?
Good point. Making a needless purchase in the name of being "eco" would be odd. However the deal covers all stores including groceries (albeit Coles), the fruit shop and a bakery. So if you'd buy those kind of products anyway, why not get a free reusable cup?
How bad are disposable cups?
Toowong Village say that the coffee cups used by Australians in a year could stretch around the globe 2.5 times.
For further info see the centre's announcement. It's good to see the centre doing something - even if some of its coffee shops haven't yet joined Responsible Cafes. Perhaps we should ask each store if they have (or will) join and offer a discount for customer with a reusable cup.
Normally a workplace might get a single collection tube. Larger places, like the Queensland University of Technology, have a dedicated coffee cup recycle bin.
The central tube is designed for any excess drink left in the cup. Then the cup itself (no lid) goes in any of the six outside tubes, automatically stacking inside the previous cup.
The whole bin is about 70-80cm tall, so I reckon it could hold a few hundred coffee cups when they are stacked.
Since I took this photo, QUT moved the cup bin next to another recycle bin, to make it easier for people to recycle the plastic lids in the normal recycling. That helps make sure this bin has purely cups and also helps fit it as many cups as possible.
You may have heard of Dresden. It's an Aussie optometrist/glasses company that makes frames from recycled plastic waste.
Their new range of frames are literally made of money. Offcuts and misprints from Australia's plastic banknotes make been chopped up and melted down to make this limited edition collection of frames.
It's so amazing what can be recycled when we put our mind to it.
For Brisbane readers
I'm told there will be a store in West End by November. Of course you can also buy online before then.
On a personal note
I'm quite excited by Dresden coming to Brisbane:
1. Sometimes I feel that my impact is small. When a company does something great - like using recycled materials - that is huge. With our support, they can grow and increase their positive impact.
2. I'm starting to need glasses for reading. Though I like the idea of buying online, as a first-timer I'm keen to buy in-store to see what suits and fits me.
Subscribe for updates
I'll be posting when Dresden open their store - and I get my first glasses. Subscribe below to get new blog posts by email.
PS. Yes I was wearing some basic magnifiers (borrowed) in my previous post. They're keeping me going until Dresden opens here.
UPDATE: The official opening of the Brisbane store is Tuesday 6 November at 4/173 Boundary St, West End.
The Biome collection is part of the Terracycle program. You can start your own collection at your local school or community group (and raise money for that group). It's convenient for you and can help other people in your group get involved in recycling.
Farmers have hit the headlines here in Australia as large portions of Eastern Australia are in drought.
Very little rain means farmers are running out of water and often running out of feed for their animals. Obviously Australians want to help. But what to do?
This stat from The New Joneses (about the environmental impact of food) gave me an idea:
If we're choosing to eat meat, how about we switch some of our red-meat for chicken or pork? These meats require 11 times less water to produce, so farmers would need far less water to produce the same amount of meat.
It seems like the smart option in a country that is getting more and more droughts as climate change increases. The only thing it needs is for us customers to be buying it instead of red meat.
Obviously it's long-term solution but, given the inadequate government action on climate change, these droughts are also going to be a long-term part of our future.
The side bonus is that (according to the original science article) these meats also produce 5 times less greenhouse emissions - so our contribution to climate change (and future droughts) will be decreased.
There's a lot we can do to make our environment better. Some of the biggest actions can be taken by our politicians - if we the voters encourage them to do so.
Enter your suburb name to find out your electorate.
That page will also give you the name of your local member.
Google them or find their page on the parliament list.
Canadian couple Grant and Jen wonder whether it's possible to live waste-free. What about going a year without buying anything (other than food)?
Their solution
A head-to-head competition where less is more. One bin each. Who will have the least waste?
Here's the trailer:
There's fun is watching how they navigate the challenge - and learn how to quickly add "no bag" every time they buy food.
Their 3 Rules
1. No buying stuff (no devices, no clothes, no shoes, no material presents)
2. No producing garbage.
3. Take responsibility for their own waste (even if eating out).
They also meet some interesting people along the way:
Brian
Brian Burke lives in a block of 20 units which no longer needs a garbage bin. They have some containers in the garage for collating things like batteries, bottle tops etc that they take to specific recycle places.
Brian's favourite thing is compost - it eliminates so much waste.
Chris
Chris Jordan is the corporate lawyer-turned-artist who creates some mind-boggling art out of showing just how much waste we generate. It's one thing to know that America uses 210 billion cups. But to see that number represented in art really hits home.
Check out his website, particularly the galleries Running the Numbers and Running the Numbers 2. These artworks are normally several metres across. From a distance they look like a normal picture (or nothing at all). It's only when you step up close (or zoom in on the website) that you can see what makes up the picture.
What to do?
If you're keen to see the movie, you can rent it online - or buy the DVD (in very minimal packaging).
If you're keen to get started, check out the Top 10 Tips from the couple who spent a year doing this.
For people in apartments, also check out ShareWaste for composting.
Have you heard of Precious Plastics? It's a movement of recycling enthusiasts and designers who shred, melt and mould used plastic into new items.
Today I met some of the people from the Precious Plastics Brisbane group at UQ's Sustainability Week. Their big piece of local news is that the State Library is soon going to have a set of equipment. I'm looking forward to trying that out.
So how does it work?
This week they are collecting lids from plastic bottles, like milk bottle lids for example. They hope to fill this jar many times over.
About 80-90 lids, when shredded up, fill a jar about this size:
Then those can be melted and injected into a mould (like below left) to make a new item. In this case a small multi-coloured cup / pen-holder. But it can be anything.
If you're in Brisbane, you may be interested in joining the Facebook group.
Wherever you live you can join the community (and see more videos) via the Precious Plastics website.
Why the huge display of disposable cups? Why film this?
Scene: A presenter crosses in front of a giant perspex container of disposable cups. She delivers yet another variation of a single line-to-camera.
"Used once" [holds up cup] "then in landfill forever" [looks at cups].
So what's going on?
My "investigative journalism" reveals that the shopping centre will soon have a "campaign" to reduce coffee cup waste.
Here's the deal
From late August, spend $10 in Toowong Village shopping centre (even just groceries) and you can get a free reusable cup.
Disclaimer: This not yet confirmed by the centre. It's just what I've managed to find out. The start date (and duration) are still a mystery but I will let you know when I do.
60% of our bin contents is organic waste - according to War on Waste. Some of that is garden waste. About 31% is food waste says my local council.
One massive thing we can do to reduce food waste is to compost our food scraps.
But we don't all have compost
Many of us live in apartments, or just aren't into composting and gardening. We need another option.
That's where ShareWaste comes in. If you've got food scraps you can find a compost person in your neighbourhood. If you do compost you can put yourself on the map to get extra organic waste from local people. What a great idea!
The first in your suburb?
If there isn't anyone close to you on the map, still sign up. This is quite new - and still growing.
You can register to be alerted when there is someone new near you. Also, you can share this post so that more people find out about it.
Food recycling?
This is an unusual but effective form of recycling. The nutrients in our food scraps can help fertilise more food to be grown. Or maybe flowers. Either way, at least it's not being wasted.
According to War on Waste, the average family generates 73kg of e-waste per year. For a family of five this can be 140kg. Over a decade that's 1.4 tonnes.
As the father of the family remarked, it's quite a lot when you look at it all at once.
Obviously e-waste is big issue. for recycling options near you, see the very well-named website Recycling Near You.
Also see how much you know about e-waste, with ABC's e-waste quiz. The average person gets about 6/10.
(Hint: I gave away one of the answers yesterday)
Australia has a good recycling system for mobile phones. But not many people know about it. Only about 10% of phones are getting recycled.
Why is it important?
As a nation we have 25 million old phones lying around the house.
How much is that?
Craig Reucassel from War on Waste covered this car (and filled the hatch) with mobile phones. He fit in 1,500 phones. To carry all of Australia's old and broken phones, he would need 17,000 cars like this.
That's a lot of waste if they get thrown in the bin. Even the little bit of gold in each broken phone would add up to tens of millions of dollars being thrown away.
So how do we recycle them?
The program is Mobile Muster. You can drop in the old or broken phone to a phone retailer. If you prefer to go direct, you can get a free mail satchel at Australia Post outlets or print the online label and post it yourself.
Mobile Muster also have more information about the recycling process and what it accepted. It includes chargers, batteries and even smart watches.
See how much phone waste you can recycle from your place.
Also, if you missed War on Waste, see the full episode on iView.
Right now Australians recycle just 3% of our used batteries. Where can we recycle them? Many people don't know.
For Australian readers, you can take household batteries (AAA, AA, C, D and 9V) to any Aldi store. See my earlier post for more information.
Battery World take dead batteries of any kind. They can also give you one of these mini-bins, which are handy for collecting used batteries at home or in the office.
Now that we know where we to take them, hopefully the rate of recycling can increase. According to this week's War on Waste, Switzerland recycles 72% of its batteries. So we definitely have room for improvement.
PS. Now my local library is also collecting used batteries. Does yours? I'd be interested to know how widespread that is.
If you spend your whole year's income in 7 months, that's not good. That's what we're doing to the Earth.
Today (1 August 2018) is Earth Overshoot Day. Already this year we've used up a year's worth of natural resources.
Clearly, we can't keep going like this - unless we have a second Earth to farm, fish, pollute and dump our waste on. One Earth just can't handle all we're doing.
Australia really bad
Worse still is that countries like mine are chewing through resources even more recklessly. If everyone behaved like Australia, Earth Overshoot Day would be 31 March. That means we'd need four Earths!
How does you country compare?
Here's where that day falls for other countries. See if you can find your country. If it's not there then your country is being responsible. (Click for a larger image).
Let's not wait until it's too late
It really is like we're spending more every year than we earn. Do we have to wait until our savings have all disappeared? Hopefully we take action earlier than that - and have a long-term future on the one Earth we do have.
This is Angie - a turtle who swallowed a plastic bag. War on Waste told us she has "floating syndrome". But what is that? Why is she stuck in turtle hospital? Why can't she go back to the ocean?
Here's a brief description from Fred Nucifora of Reef HQ Aquarium:
"Floating syndrome is caused by a build up of gas in the turtle’s body, which can happen after it has ingested marine debris that blocks its gastrointestinal tract and prevents food being properly digested. The body’s unreleased gas keeps the animal afloat which not only stops it diving for food, but also makes it more vulnerable to predators like sharks or boat traffic in the area."
The options aren't great for turtles that swallow plastic. They get eaten, hit by a boat, or starve to death. That's why she'll have to stay in turtle hospital probably for the rest of her life.
In Angie's case it was a plastic bag someone used for probably a few minutes. It really is obvious that we should reduce our use of disposable plastic and increase the amount that gets recycled.
PS. The episode also showed turtles with a drinking straw lodged up their nostril. In one case it seemed to be the entire length of the straw. Ouch.
Bonus link: More on buoyancy disorders
A bottle of water a day costs a thousand dollars a year. So why do people do it?
Is it healthier?
Craig Reucassel (War on Waste) took several bottled water brands - and tap water - to the lab. No brand is really any better than tap water, and many are far worse for you.
Does it taste better?
Craig took to the streets to give people a taste test of tap-water (pretending it was bottled water) and people actually said they would switch to that "brand".
Perhaps it's all just a marketing con
The bottled water use nature-sounding words and lots of marketing. Perhaps that's why we buy it. To illustrate the point Craig made this satirical ad for Robinet Water:
Is it more convenient?
It makes it getting it easier. But without a nearby recycle bin it also makes waste easier - and that's not good. It also costs $1000 for that convenience.
Surely given the choice of having your own refillable water bottle or paying $1000 every year, the refillable bottle has to be the winner.
The War on Waste is back for a second series and this week they made a giant footprint from 1 tonne of plastic waste (in plastic bags).
Australia generates 666,000 tonnes of plastic waste a year - so this footprint is what we generate every minute (or 47 seconds to be precise).
For scale, that little thing in front of the big toe is a person.
They literally emptied a truck of these plastic bags onto the beach to visualise what 1 tonne of plastic waste looks like.
It's so much that it didn't even fit in the giant footprint - they had to pile it up.
While it took a few people quite a while to set it up, we generate this amount in under a minute. We've probably generated another footprint just while you've been reading this post.
To see it like this really is quite stunning. Surely we can get more of this recycled.
The new series of War on Waste starts tonight on ABC. Last night, panel discussion show Q&A was all about waste - how we can reduce it and how we can get more recycling happening in Australia.
Craig Reucassel (the host of War on Waste) was on the panel with people from social enterprises, a waste management expert and a representative from local government. Replay the conversation by downloading the episode or reading the transcript. You can also watch the QandA episode - and the first series of War on Waste in a special iView collection.
Stats on Waste
Here are some numbers that came from the episode:
- Last year Australia generated 64 million tonnes of waste. That's more than 2.5 tonnes per person.
- The average household wastes $60 each week on wasted food. That's 1 in 5 shopping bags.
- By 2050 there'll be more plastic in the ocean than fish.
- 95% of plastic is used only once. (I guess that includes straws, plastic bags, water bottles, coffee lids, takeaway food containers etc)
Questions from the audience included topics such as what happens to the material we recycle, how to encourage people to use tap water instead of wasteful bottled water, how to reduce food waste and the role of government in reducing waste and increasing recycling.
Tune in to ABC tonight to catch the start of Series 2 of the War on Waste.
Reusable bags are great. Even better if they're unique. Here's one way to MacGyver yourself a unique reusable bag - and hold on to a fave T-shirt for a little bit longer.
Grab an old T-shirt that you like, but has been retired from public wearing. After 10 years, my New York one is a great example.
Take out the arms and the neck area. For speed, just cut along the inside of the seams. Or you can use a plate to trace a nice round curve. Up to you. You can always cut more off later, if you want to adjust the shape.
Now let's seal up the bottom. Turn it inside out. Decide how deep you want your bag to be and draw a marker line there. Cut slits up to that line. I did them about 1.5 - 2 cm apart, but it's up to you.
Tie each pair of strips together. Now you have a bunch of knots across the bottom with tiny holes in-between.
To strengthen the bag, and seal up those small holes, tie together a strand from knot 1 and a strand from knot 2. Keep going for knots 2 and 3, knots 3 and 4 etc. Now you've got a completed bag - but with a large fringe.
Cut off the excess strands and turn the bag back to the right way out. The bottom should look something like this.
Now you're ready to go. Mine turned out a little smaller than I thought - I cut the slits quite long. But this size is great for picking up a couple of things from the shops, and those other times you just need to carry a few items.
So there you go. That's how you can turn a T-shirt into a reusable bag with just a pair of scissors and a marker pen.
PS. If you like the fringe at the bottom - or you're making something for Country & Western Week - then ignore the bit about turning it inside out before cutting the slits, and just stop once you've tied all the knots.
