Eco-Friendly DIY: T-shirt to Reusable Tote (no sew)

Everyone know plastic is harmful to the environment. We've also seen that picture of that penguin with the soda rings around its neck and that turtle eating his plastic "jellyfish". But did you know that even small bits of plastic can kill? As plastic breaks down, little particles are ingested by fish and seabirds causing a build up of plastic inside. This means that certain biodegradable plastics, which merely accelerate the breaking down process, can still cause much harm to the environment.

In addition, this affects humans too, because plastics soaking in the ocean act as a sponge for chemicals. They absorb harmful toxins and transfer them to the fish who consume them, and as any biology student would know, toxins accumulate through the food chain. The little fish consumes ten grams of toxins, the bigger fish consumes ten of the little fish and thus 100 grams of toxins, the even bigger fish consumes ten of those, and so on until we eat that fish and all the collected toxins.

In my opinion, the best solution to the problem would simply be to reduce plastic consumption, starting with shopping bags. In Australia alone, over 10 million plastic bags are used daily, meaning that on average, you use and throw away 200 bags every year. Use a reusable bag for a year and that's already 200 plastic bags less. Use it for ten years and you've reduce plastic consumption by 2000 plastic bags.

In this brief tutorial I'll be showing you how to create your own market bag out an old t-shirt in half-an-hour or less. Enjoy :)

(Also, apologies for the bad picture quality. Dorm room lighting is terrible.)

1. Find an old t-shirt, preferably with a nice pattern, but anything will do.

2. Cut off the sleeves and back, and make a fringe at the bottom. Mine was actually far too short so don't worry about making the fringe too long. T-shirts stretch A LOT when carrying all your groceries.

3. Double knot the fringes together. You can either do this with the t-shirt facing the right way out to create little bow/tassel things at the bottom of your bag, or inside out so it doesn't show.

I ended up doing the latter.

And since I made my fringes too short I had to shorten the handles of my tote a bit:

4. Tuck the loose ends in with a pencil if you're doing a fringeless tote and you're done!