plastic bags for cordage practice

[irishlostboy]

sliced up plastic shopping bags make a good substance for practicing making cordage. i cut them into hoops and twist them just like making nettle cordage. you get about a meter per small bag of 2 ply. its not the strongest, but its not that bad either. and great for those of us who like in a city. as to what to do with this cordage, i am open to suggestions. maybe weave it into a fabric? or maybe i should learn to knit.

 

[Toddy]

It makes good outside the back door mats It's also a cheap as chips way to get cordage to practice coiled basketry. Green garden sacks can be used too and these make quite discrete. nets for peas and the like...........you could try your hand at camo nets from it I suppose too.
If you use strips of newspaper the paper rope makes good wastepaper baskets, the pun is intentional

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Cap'n Badger]

Ifin ye uses the 'whole' bags....ye can make a tidy multi coloured recycled rope swing fer the kids next door.......They're still usin' it a year later!.......(tho I think the sunlight will degrade the rope eventually.....hope I've got me camera handy fer that one..lol...)

 

[Draven]

Very nice

Just yesterday I was playing with one of those thin plastic tubes the swan cigarette filters come in and I was thinking about how strong they were - should've known someone would've thought of something similar first

Pete

 

[Pict]

I once found a 3/4 inch hemp rope about 40 cm long washed up on a beach in Brazil. I was able to make a very long, decent line out of it, easily capable of fishing or other tasks. It was a good exercise. Using a discarded plastic bag for cordage is a good example of thinking outside the box. We often think of cordage making using traditional plant materials and that is a good skill to have but once you get the basic technique down you can make cordage out of just about anything. "Garbage to Cordage" is a good skill to know. Mac

ETA - In Brazil once I watched a man re-handle a knife blade using tightly twisted plastic bags wrapped around the tang and covered in aluminum foil. He melted the plastic and used a gloved hand to squeeze out the air and mold the handle. Once cool it took a good set and held secure.

 

[smoggy]

I like most people reuse shopping bags regularly in various tasks, but I don't think I'd have come up with this novel use....which can also be applied to many of the other plasic packaging we need to dispose of.

moulding a plastic handle.....I'm gonna impress someone with that in the not too distant...brilliant!

Smoggy.

 

[irishlostboy]

ok, next step on from this was to use the cord for something. because it is plastic it is pretty stretchy, so not ideal for tying things up, soooo... time for me to learn to knit. first, make knitting needles. then hunt around on youtube for some tutorials.( was pict's youtube channel that i learned how to twist cordarge from. cheers mate. quality stuff)
end result is i can now kinda knit. not very manly perhaps, but a very practical skill to have.
here is a little pic.

as to why my plastic is the same shade of blue? i only get plastic bags in the butchers. he double bags everything. so the blue outer bag is clean and fine to use. i carry a backpack everywhere, so i dont have much plastic from shopping.
some great ideas from people here on how to make stuff from lastic. well done and thanks.

 

[spamel]

It could tablet weave quite well, I reckon you could get some stunning results.

 

[irishlostboy]

i dunno what tablet weave is... yet....ok, google told me what tablet weaving is. yup. sure you could do that too. i wanna learn to knit because it is so portable. two sticks and a cord.

 

[spamel]

Same deal with tablet weaving, but it's much more manly!

 

[Neolithic]

This is great stuff! Particulalry love the knitting! lol

I was talking to my mate about reusing plastic bags theother day, and she said she was reading about making them into really strong sheets by cutting them into squares, overlaying several sheets, covering them with grease proof paper, then ironing over on a low heat. I reckon you could make waterproof tarpaulins for windbreaks or the like - gonna have a go at this, and the rope, as I'm being assaulted by an avalanche of bags everytime I open my kitchen cupboards!

Fab idea - thanks! I'm drawing the line at the knitting though, leave it to the guys...