It´s a known fact that plastic bags can be ironed and reused some purposes, but an awful lot of the objects produced with this method look a bit sloppy compared to products on the market. So in this post I trace the steps of how I try to find an easy way of producing nice looking materials (similar to http://www.riceandcarry.com) and objects using minimal tools that are
available or easily accessible (basically just an iron, baking paper, piece of wood and textile).
My aim is to find a technique so simple that it can be applied to any type of plastic bag, regardless of different plastic. After a few failed experiments (too cold iron or too hot) the same temperature was used for all experiments to simplify the procedure. The temperature used for all the experiments is set on cotton on the iron (around 205 celsius).
First experiments proved to work all right, the bags shrank and got stronger but when joining different pieces of plastic bags the outcome was not as I wished.
Material: Single sheet of plastic bags.
Method: Ironed on both sides with baking paper.
Up-side: Plastic fuses well together.
Down-side: Shrinkage is unpredictable and surface rough.
hey!
I have a question, how could I separate ldpe and hdpe plastic bags in a quick way? How to identify them better if it doesn’t have any mark or is not a typical plastic bag (I mean shape and usage, for example, fabric tubes a rolled in a huge transparent plastic and I could use it but I’m not sure if it fits). Thanks!
Hello, very impressive work and also thank you for sharing every step of the process until you’ve reached the ‘final method’.
I have 2 questions:
-1- How do you get that uniform colour? Do you have to sellect the bags one by one and only use the ones that have the very exact colour?
-2- Can we get this result (fabric/textile) with other plastics? For example melting plastic bottles and then while using a rolling pin create a thin uniform piece of plastic sheet.
@bjornsteinar, Thanks for the promo in your headline!
HI all, below you can see the set up that did the trick for us. First pick is a textile industry heat press. They are available online for reasonable amounts of money. Cheapest ones probably compare to a fancy iron. It’s ideal to make sheets, you can set time and temperature and compresses evenly so the results are super stable.
We use teflon paper, which is practically baking paper on steriods.
It’s important to cool down the sheets under pressure so it does not wrinkle and morph.
The second photo shows our high end set up for that. so once the machine makes peep peep we take out the sheets with teflon paper on both sides and place it under that wooden board. Then we roll that wooden box thing with the bricks onto it. Well worth investing into wheels or back pain will be just around the corner. We pile up 10 or so sheets under the board. It will cool pretty quickly and the sheet will be relative neat looking. Easy as pie really. @svk95, doesn’t matter how many microns the bags have. The thicker the less you have to pile up and press into a sheet. Depends on how flexible you want your material.
Hi guys,
In India, where I am based in, there are a lot of plastic bags used. Especially of low quality and less than 50 microns. I have heard that the bags below 50 microns cannot be recycled. Any ideas on what can be done so that they can be reused?
@bjornsteinar It’s super nice.
In Shanghai everyday people received tones of product delivered in HDPE plastic bags, I’m doing some test using your technic, it’s pretty easy.
I used the plastic as if it was leather and made a simple wallet in few hours. It’s not ready for production yet but I’ll keep on exploring and share more photos later.
Thanks!
wow @faro360 , that´s some impressive stuff! if you know anything about how to make this kind of stuff please don´t hesitate to post it here in the forums!
(although I focused on how to use a lo-fi method – just using an iron – to producing something from the bags).
hey @a-minnaard!
my experiments were always aimed at making a method that work for all kinds of plastic bag.
I try to keep HDPE and LDPE bags separated, but the same temperature and methods work for both!
Hey @tinch! I´ve been using a textile with a rough texture while fusing the plastic bags, it gives the bags a smoother surface and also leaves a nice imprint of the textile! I do this after I have pre-ironed the sheets and also fused them together like I did in the previous post!
Hope we get to see some stuff you are trying!
Great topic, this one. @bjornsteinar, do you know about https://www.gafreh.org/? They make really good looking bags (https://www.gafreh.org/en/nos-creations) where you can hardly tell they used to be these little annoying black plastic bags you get with everything you buy in e.g. Burkina Faso. It might be worth it to contact them and learn how they work, what techniques they use etc. Two remarks though: I know it’s very labour intensive, and from what I’ve heard, they are not very keen on sharing their expertise (for free). Oh, and probably only in French… But nevertheless, could be interesting to reach out to them?
I’ve visited them last year. If you’re interested, I can tell you what I know about the project, which is limited but I guess the most important basic stuff
great work! thank you for your sharing @bjornsteinar and @flo-2
such an motivation to start making experiments with plastic bags.
i was thinking that maybe if some textile (don’t know which one yet) is ironed between plastic sheets this could give another resistance or property.
a great example could be the tyvek wallets. they are really resistant to rip, waterproof, and really slim.
i attach a photo if someaone don’t know about them.
I then wanted to get some texture into a LDPE-Block, so I made another one. Sadly I used cotton and now half of the cotton is on the plastic D: However some parts still look nice!
Inspired by @bjornsteinar I took my cut-offs and cut them even smaller, again mixing all the colors together and ironed them, folded, ironed again, folded, ironed and pressed to be as flat as possible. I then cut it and i think it looks even cooler on the inside. (Not polished yet)
Then I found instructions for a small Ladies handbag and tried to make it out of LDPE. I used the sewing machine and was surprised how well it worked! The result isn’t too bad in my opinion, although it is not finished (and never will be). Next time I should use less different colors I think, because it looks a bit kindergarden-like in my opinion
