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Woman Knits Stylish Suit From 300 Plastic Grocery Bags

The finished garment is quite chic, with a tweedy look from green printing on the brown bags.
AP
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(Jamie Germano/Democrat & Chronicle via AP

GREECE, N.Y. (AP) — Rosa Ferrigno’s new suit takes recycling to an extreme — she knitted it from more than 300 plastic grocery bags.

The 75-year-old woman from Greece in western New York whiled away the winter knitting a skirt and jacket from filmy brown bags scissored into thin strips that were tied together to make yarn. She lined it with cotton fabric.

The finished garment is quite chic, with a tweedy look from green printing on the brown bags.

Her daughter, Fran Bertalli, tells the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle that Ferrigno has been knitting and sewing since her childhood in Sicily.

Last summer, Ferrigno saw someone’s purse made from repurposed plastic bags and started her own bag projects, making two purses before the suit.

She says she does it just for fun.

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Before You Go

Clever Recycling Schemes
Tattletale Carts In Cleveland(01 of07)
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It’s not only the nosy neighbor who’s watching in Cleveland. Next year the city plans to give recycling carts to residents outfitted with RFID tags. If the chip indicates the recycling cart hasn’t been brought to the curb in a few weeks, a trash supervisor will sort through the trash looking for recyclables. If paper, cardboard, glass and plastic bottles, and cans make up more than 10% of the trash, the offender receives a $100 fine. City officials are motivated by more than just concerns for the earth. While the city has to pay $30 million a year to dispose of trash, it earns $26 per ton of recyclables. (credit:File/Getty)
Green Handed Prize Patrol In Charlotte(02 of07)
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Charlotte has bold plans to become one of the most sustainable cities in America, part of which involves increasing annual recycling tonnage by 20%. But instead of trying to catch people in the act of trashing recyclables, the Get Caught Green Handed patrol will be looking for do-gooders. They’ll be hanging out around recycling cans uptown through November, waiting to catch people recycling. People caught will be rewarded with gift cards, deli sandwiches, a 20-ounce Coke, and a foam hand that says “I Got Caught Green Handed.” Cute. Charlotte is also using RFID tagged recycling bins to monitor recycling rates in Charlotte neighborhoods, though without the heavy-handedness of the Cleveland campaign. The big question in our minds: is that foam hand recyclable? (credit:File/Flickr/Cynergist)
ABC Gum Recycling(03 of07)
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Raise your hand if you’ve ever gazed at a sidewalk or underside of a desk in disgust, thinking, “If only gum had never been invented…”Well, we can’t go back in time, but there might be another solution. The Gumdrop campaign aims to collect the stuff and turn into into a polymer that can in turn be used to make a variety of plastic products. Its trial run was appropriately held at a US amusement park earlier this year, with collection bins made from the gum polymer. Lucy Bullus, who came up with the method while studying design at Brighton University, would like to see the polymer be used for toys, tires, and even rain boots. (credit:File/Flickr/quinn.anya)
Keeping Kicks Out Of The Landfill(04 of07)
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If you’re an avid jogger, you’re supposed to buy a new pair of tennis shoes every three or four months. Woah, that’s a lot of tennis shoes to go through! Even if you’re a couch potato, tennis shoes get dirty and worn out after some time hitting the streets.Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe program will take your useless old shoes and turn them into useful sports and playground surfaces. That’s one less pair in the landfill. (credit:AP)
Composting In San Francisco(05 of07)
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In October of last year, San Francisco made composting mandatory. Instead of dinner being scraped into the garbage, food scraps go into sealed food compost bins that get picked up by the city every day. Treehugger reported last year that even before the law went into effect, it already seemed to be a success. Compost bins were handed out early, and garbage officials of this forward-thinking city were stunned by the amount of food waste that started streaming into the Organic Annex, where half of the city’s food scraps are sent. The benefits: it has trimmed the garbage disposal costs for apartment buildings, bay area farms and vineyards get compost, it doesn’t cost much for the city, landfill space is freed up, and garbage is significantly less smelly. Anyone who has ever jogged through a city neighborhood on garbage day can appreciate that. (credit:AP)
Money In The Bank(06 of07)
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Well, it’s not exactly cash. But that doesn’t seem to matter to residents of Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Just one week after implementing the RecycleBank rewards program, which measures the amount each household recycles and rewards them with points, recycling rates went up by 137 percent.It’s actually amazing how many retailers and companies accept the RecycleBank points: Whole Foods, Kashi, Rite Aid, Seventh Generation, Yoplait, Home Depot and (dare we say it) McDonalds are just a tiny fraction of partners. Even if you don’t live in one of the many participating cities, you can send in your old electronics for points. (credit:Flickr/AComment)
Terracycle Upcycles(07 of07)
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Instead of recycling, which involves using energy to break down waste and then remake it, Terracycle uses garbage as is to make new, better product, like tote bags and cork boards. It’s a good way to deal with stuff that can’t be recycled. You can send in certain garbage items like drink and granola pouches, and Terracycle will send proceeds to your favorite charity. The goal is to make the very concept of garbage obsolete. (credit:AP)
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