Plastic Bag Quilting!

Ever wonder what to do with all those plastic bags lying around your house? Did you know that they can’t be combined with your regular recycling? This spring, to raise awareness about the serious environmental challenges that plastic bags present, the Center is partnering with Carolina Performing Arts and campus sustainability partners to turn plastic bags into art. We’re also issuing a Plastic Bag Challenge to see if UNC students, staff, faculty, parents, and friends can recycle 10,000 plastic bags through the special collection points that can help turn those old grocery bags (and other types of plastic film) into sustainable lumber and reusable plastic products.

Join us next Friday, as CPA DisTIL Fellow Robin Frohardt shows us how to craft a plastic bag quilt! Building on her previous work in visual arts, theater, and puppetry, Robin’s current project focuses on the ubiquity of plastic, which is non-biodegradable and therefore becomes a permanent part of our planet. Our plastic bag quilt will be exhibited on April 21 at “PLASTICON” in CPA’s new artspace CURRENT. We’ll have southern snacks, friendly instruction for newcomers, and a new spin on old-fashioned quilting. You can also bring in those old plastic bags, which we’ll collect and recycle as part of our Plastic Bag Challenge.

This event is free and open to the public, but RSVPs to Alex Ripp at aripp@unc.edu will be appreciated. Special thanks to our co-sponsors and quilting buddies: Carolina Performing Arts, Sustainability@UNC, EcoReps, the Office of Waste Reduction and Recycling, and the Three Zeros Initiative.