Tag Archives: Blanket(s)

By taking discarded chip bags and turning them into blankets, a 12-year-old girl in Wales is helping both people in need and the environment. Alyssa started her project in August 2021, and in the last year has collected almost 10,000 chip bags to make 200 blankets. She works on them after school, and said it takes about an hour to finish a blanket.

“Each packet has to be opened out so it’s flat and then washed in the sink,”

Alyssa told BBC News.

“Then you take four of them, put them under a piece of baking paper, and iron them so that the heat fuses them together. Finally, you sandwich the … packets between two thin sheets of clear plastic, and you use the iron again to seal that in place.”

Chip bags aren’t easy to recycle, Alyssa said, and she’s happy to have found another use for the packaging while helping others. Alyssa and her mother give the blankets — along with gloves, socks, toothpaste, and other essentials — to local organizations in Wales that can distribute the items to people who are homeless.

“You wouldn’t think you could turn a crisp packet into something so helpful,”

Alyssa told BBC News, but people “like the blankets because they’re really lightweight and waterproof.” [BBC News]