From shopping bag handles to fishing gear, lots of rope can be creatively reused! You can listen to my podcast episode about creative reuse of rope at this YouTube video, which originally aired in June 2019.
Shopping Bag Handles
If you purchase an item in a paper bag with rope handles, be sure to remove the handles and creatively reuse them before putting the bag in your paper recycling. Some projects I have made with rope shopping bag handles include:
Get ideas for projects that you can make from upcycled rope shopping bag handles at Trashmagination’s Pinterest board for rope.
Fishing Gear Rope
Each year, it is estimated that 640,000 tons of abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear gets dumped in the ocean[1] which makes up almost half of the plastic pollution in the oceans. This gear is called “ghost gear” because it floats around in the ocean continuing to catch and kill sea life. It takes hundreds of years to degrade, killing the whole time.
Lots of people are trying to address this issue of ghost gear or discarded fishing gear. Divers organize huge underwater cleanups. Fishermen gather tons of gear at fishing docks.
Resources mentioned in the podcast:
- Ghost Gear Initiative
- Aquafil – company that upcycles nets and ropes into nylon yarn
- Swedish Stockings
- adidas Parley shoes made from marine plastic
- Verdura shoes made from upcycled fishing nets
Artists who Work with Recycled Fishing Gear Rope
Erub Arts from Darnley Island, Australia – making sculptures of marine wildlife, teaching workshops around the world on how to make a sea turtle from ghost gear
Caroline Bond aka Kittie Kipper who makes marine wildlife sculptures, baskets and bags from ghost gear
Gin Stone’s fishing rope sculptures
Mark Heffley, Second Ascent Designs
Door mats from upcycled lobster ropes – sometimes woven in a rectangle, and sometimes tied in a big flat knot called an ocean plait mat
