What can I reuse or recycle to repair the mesh on bicycle panniers?
Good friend of Recycle This and The Really Good Life, Su, has got a question for us:
Bicycle panniers – mine have a really useful stretchy mesh pocket on the outside, unfortunately now more hole than mesh. Any ideas on repairing them? The actual pannier part is absolutely fine.
The summer before last, I bought some mens’ shorts for myself and since I don’t have things down there in need of containment, I removed the “netting” layer – that wouldn’t have been pretty but would have fit the bill perfectly – stretchy white mesh. (I ended up using it in the greenhouse to store bulbs.) Can anyone think of anything else in the same vein to reuse instead? Heavy (so they won’t run) nylon tights maybe?
Another idea which is less reusing/recycling but still repairing: could you crochet a flat mesh from a plastic twine using a variant on a string bag patten? I used to make a version of this bag from all sorts of different yarns when we were short of shopping bags – makes up very quickly because it’s so much hole :)
Any other ideas?
(Photo by arifm)
“could you crochet a flat mesh from a plastic twine using a variant on a string bag patten?”
That’s a good idea, but in a pinch, how about a plastic mesh produce bag? The kind apples, oranges, potatoes. ect., sometimes come in. It wouldn’t be stretchy, but maybe make a casing at the top and add a strip of elastic cord?
Or use one of those mesh laundry bags they make to put delicate items in? I’ve seem them at the drugstore for not much at all.
If the mesh is the part that goes, perhaps one could replace it with something else altogether. I’ve geen wondering about the best way to recycle my sons’ slinky synthetic basketball shorts, and I think that material would fit the bill. The synthetic fabric wouldn’t hold moisture as cotton would, and it would be more rugged than a mesh, though I like the mesh ideas mentioned above.
Thanks for the suggestions. Sadly, I cannot crochet, but the suggestion made me realise that I could knit a replacement, and I don’t need to stick to boring black! I think I’ll use up some odds & ends.