Hi Everyone,
Another month has passed, time sure goes by quickly; I guess that means we are busy!!
I have some news that may disappoint but cheer us as well. As you know, our “new” milk bags are all rejects from the bag manufacturer. The boxes of bags that I get are misprints, have expired coupons on the back, may look good but have too much static between the bags, or the boxes are damaged. For all these reasons, these bags are rejected and not transported to the dairies. The good news is the manufacturer is getting a machine that will grind the rejected bags back into pellets, and the plastic will be remade into new bags. How many times they can do this, I don’t know, but it will definitely decrease the number of bags I can get. I see this as a wonderful thing for our environment, BUT we will definitely have a reduction in the number of “new” reject bags. We have always relied on people recycling their bags from home but the majority of bags we used were the rejects from the manufacturer. This is how we started 17 years ago.. collecting from homes. The reject bags were wonderful because we used them for our mats and for Canadian Food for Children to put rice, pasta, beans and other dry goods like soap for donations to the poor around the world.
I just had a delivery of boxes of reject milk bags and my garage is full. If you would like to top up your supply, please email me and I will make sure you get your bags for weaving the mats.
Please encourage your friends and family to save their “home” milk bags. Schools, churches, community centres, etc, are wonderful places to collect used bags. So put out the word that dry, flat and boxed bags are needed.
So far this year we have sent 1466 mats to people in need. Let’s put a push on to get the bags I have woven up. Email me and get your supply of boxes.
I do not plan to stop the milk bags project; it will definitely slow down, but that is okay, the reject bags will be reprocessed and this is a good thing.
Take care,
Angela