How can I reuse or recycle woven plastic bird food bags?
We’ve had an email from Siddharth:
How do I recycle plastic bird food bags? The brown paper ones I can just throw into the paper bin, but the recycling facility doesn’t accept the woven plastic ones.
I suspect there will be some overlap between these bags and the plastic sacks we get when bulk buying rice.
Suggestions over on the rice sack page include making them into shopping bags, aprons or using them as a groundsheet/roof-liner for kids’ playhouses.
Cut into strips, they could also be used as ties around the garden – we always have stuff out there that needs tying to other stuff ;)
Any bird seed bag specific suggestions?
I use the woven plastic dog food bags as trash bags. I suspect that the bird food bags would be similar.
Put inside some pieces of wool,fabrics,rags and so on,birds will make their nests out of it…I do it for about 5 years now and all my tits (birds) have their nests colorful :)
windowbox! put soil in it, and hang it by the window as a recycled hanging plant in your house to improve the air quality and/or to grow a nice herb/veggie
You may be able to sew them into new items- I know there are sites showing bags, etc. made from all kinds of packaging. I’m going to be using one soon with the hopeful outcome of growing potatoes. If you google “grow potatoes sack” there are some convenient ways to grow potatoes, although I think the most common way is in burlap.
Finally, one way I reuse them in my yard- I keep one bag (which even has a handle!) to use when I kneel for weeding, to keep my knees clean in the garden.
Oh! Remembered one more. I watched an online gardening clip once (from the uk) and learned to cut a circle out of these bags to put between the coir lining and the dirt in a hanging plant. Just poke a few holes and it is a good way to help the plants retain moisture.
I stuffed a large catfood bag with plastic grocery bags and stapled the open end shut. I put an old rag rug on top and it made a cushy place for a litter of kittens to sleep. I’ve been thinking about using duct tape to attach 4 of these “beds” together to make a large dog bed. I suppose you could make a removable/washable cover out of old blankets or towels.
One of my friends uses jute and woven plastic feed sacks and t-shirt scraps to make shag rugs with. We use the larger pieces of t-shirt to make other craft projects with, and then the leftover bits go into the shag rugs. She uses knitting needles to poke through the sacking material, pulls scraps of t-shirt through, pushes it out the other end (i.e. weaving) and ties a knot to secure the t-shirt scraps in place. Weave and tie scraps close together to create a ‘fluffy’ feel. These make comfortable and highly absorbent kitchen and bath mats. I will try to get a photo of the weaving process so you could have a better idea.
If anyone out there has any of these woven bird food, dog food or any other of these woven bags that have a neat picture on them, I would be intrested in buying them from you. I am a crafter and I make things out of them for gifts and am trying to find more. They have to be in really good shape, no holes, rips, water damage or discolorations. I don’t know what you could get if the recycling center would take them, but I would pay something plus the shipping of course. You can contact me at: sweetwine@charter.net. Thanks!
Spread it, write a protest note on it and march to the recycling facility. :)