The fashion industry has multiple trends in line with a trend coming up every few months. Similarly, the shifts from traditional to modern wear to back to traditional have taken place in the last century. Even the handloom industry in the country which was once a blooming bird has now seen a downfall with high prices and limited supply, the industry is actually losing its market share in recent days.
Apart from this, the fashion industry amounts to a larger amount of textile waste created as an end result. Not only this, we all are evidently facing a larger problem of the usage of plastic bags, provided the fact that plastic is an unnecessary evil for the larger population. Multiple innovations have been taking place in the industry to focus on ways of reducing the overall consumption of plastic. However, the consumption will change in the long run, there are still untouched points that have to be focused on. Experts are researching ways to find out how efficiently the plastic can be reused.
One of the major innovations that have come across as a groundbreaking methodology acting as a sustainable alternative to reduce overall plastic waste generation is the creation of PLARN fabric. Plarn essentially stands for the mixture created out of plastic and cotton yarn referring to the PLASTIC YARN, a yarn made out of mixing plastic and yarn manually. The use of plarn has actually upscalled the way people use plastic altogether.
A lot of us, eco-conscious lot reading here, are well aware of what this incorporates, but for a lot of us, it is necessary to understand the process of creating plarn. I would hereby love to elaborate upon the process of creating plarn and discussing the possible articles that can be created out of it. Making it more fashionable as well as sustainable in the long run with a focus on the environment.
The Plarn Creating Process
- Collection of plastic bags: Collect the desired number of plastic bags you wish to assemble to repurpose them. They can be of different colors and sizes as per your wish or you can maintain uniformity as per you. Further, sanitize and clean all your bags and straighten them up.
- Cutting the unnecessary elements: Once the bags are straightened out in place, using a pair of scissors, remove the top i.e. handling edge, and bottom i.e. the connector that acts as the base of the bag.
- Cutting from the side: Cut the bag from any one of the sides so that the bag can be spread out and allow for getting longer strips
- Cutting the strips: From the now-ready material cut out strips with a width of 1 to 1.5 inches.
- Connect all the strips together to obtain a long thread-like structure.
- Your plarn strip is now ready.
- In order to proceed make sure to use thread together with the strip to ensure that it increases the durability of the plarn. However, it can even work without the involvement of a thread.
The plarn is now ready to be utilized in whichever manner, you wish to use it.
I wish to further propose the creativity that can be imbibed in the plarn and the materials that can be drawn out of it. Now further, the plarn can be easily used very similar to the normal thread, moreover, due to the increased size it is better to knead the desired article with the plarn.
The possible articles or products that can be knit out of plarn include bottle covers, tablemats, wall hangings, bags, planters, etc. The products created out of plarn act as eco-friendly alternatives to already existing materials in the market. Moreover, it might also be durable provided there is an inter-sectional crossing between the threads improving its durability.
Happy plarn product crafting!!
But wait, what if you can try out already crafted products existing in the market while also learning out the best practices in the line before creating one on your own? I have a solution for that.
Project Ehtiyat is a collaborative initiative by Enactus College of Vocational Studies and Enactus Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Khalsa College students. It’s a student-run sustainable social entrepreneurial project that focuses on catering to the problem of plastic wastage by converting plastic into durable plarn products. Not only this, but it also focuses on uplifting the community of handloom workers by providing them with additional work and a source of income as the income generated through the sale of these products ultimately reaches into their development.
The project offers a wide range of products at minimal pricing compared to its competitors. The products include a wide range of handbags that are light, and durable with an internal cloth layer for comfort. Moreover, they are also available in multiple colors which are really attractive. Moreover, they offer planters which they call “plarnters” which are closely knit planters made of plarn that can be effectively used for knitting. Not only this, they’ve large varieties of plastic kits for keeping important material called “plaskits”, they are light, durable and available in attractive colors.
Appears to he a great way to tackle the increasing problem of plastic. Great work!
Plarn has been an innovative yet effective methodology. It’s great to put out the method for reusing plastic in an effective way here.
This is one of the newest ideas I’ve come across, I’m sure it would have existed in the market earlier. Thank you for bringing it out here clearly.
The idea of plarn is actually an innovative one. Seems promising to be tried.
That seems like a really amazing approach to solving the problem of plastic. Even if 30% of our plastic wastage can be reduced through repurposing, it’ll be really effective.