Newton community members create sleeping mats out of plastic grocery bags

Plastic grocery bags either end up in a landfill or crumpled into balls and put into an even larger bag hanging on the inside handle of a hallway closet; worst case scenario they find their way outdoors and entangled in some tree or floating in a pond with other trash. But some local churchgoers found another use for them.

Every Monday for the past four months, volunteers have been hand-weaving sleeping mats made from plastic grocery bags. Ina Heidemann, a retired science teacher from Newton schools, got the idea from Midwest Mission, a nonprofit organization that has sent mats for disaster relief and for homeless populations.

Several other churchgoers from St. Luke United Methodist Church learned how to make the mats from the Jefferson, Iowa-based chapter of Midwest Mission. Plastic bags are collected, cut into strips and then tied together in a certain way before being woven on a wooden loom and tightened into large, rollable mats.

Heidemann and her dedicated crew of grocery bag weavers meet regularly at First Christian Church. Sometimes they are even joined by volunteers from Progress Industries to help cut and tie the bags. Depending on the type of bag, it takes anywhere from 750 to 900 grocery bags to make one mat.

It can take at least 12 hours to complete one mat. So far, the group — which has been dubbed “Looms of Love” by the Mission Coalition — has fully completed one mat and is almost finished with another. The bags were collected from community members who no doubt had an abundance of them.

For Heidemann, working on the mats and collecting plastic grocery bags has opened her eyes to the amount of trash there is around the state.

“Once you start thinking about it and you drive around and start focusing on those plastic bags in the environment — oh my gosh they’re everywhere!” she said. “You think to yourself, ‘If we just went out on a cruise and picked up plastic bags it would clean the environment up.’ Most of it is plastic bags.”

The sleeping mats will be on display during the Newton Arboretum & Botanical Gardens’ Earth Day: Planet Vs. Plastic collection and drop-off. From 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on April 22, residents are encouraged to bring their empty detergent bottles and lids, plastic bags and plastic bottles to the Arboretum.

While there have been many people asking to purchase a mat, the group making them is adamant that they be donated to people that need them once they build up enough of a supply. It will take time to accrue enough mats. But for retirees like Jan Lewis, who goes to St. Luke United Methodist, it’s a good use of time.

“It’s a fun way of recycling grocery bags,” Lewis said. “There was one out on my front yard just today. I live on First Avenue and get a lot of trash.”

Even though there are pieces of the plastic bags that do not get used for the mats, the group is determined to make sure nothing goes to waste. Deb Van Brogen, who regularly participates in Looms of Love, said the tops and bottoms of the bags are put in bags and returned to Hy-Vee.

“It’s all recycled,” Van Brogen said.

Joyce Stonehocker, who also goes to St. Luke United Methodist, added, “No matter what color it is, they’ll take them all back to make new bags.”

Looms of Love may be a relatively new venture for these ladies, but it is an activity they take very seriously. Van Brogen is often cutting bags when sitting at home in her recliner; Stonehocker feels like she is always at the dining room table preparing the next ball of “plarn,” or plastic yarn.

Obtaining plastic bags is the easy part, and the group is still accepting any and all bags so long as they do not have any holes. Heidemann is trying to get a number of churches involved in the group to help collect bags. For now, residents can bring them to First Christian Church or St. Luke United Methodist.

Other churches involved with the Mission Coalition may accept the bags as well. Kyle Abel, a trustee of the First Christian Church, asked that the bags not be left hanging on the doorknob of a church. Abel is just impressed by the amount of people who show up to weave the bags on a weekly basis.

“We have a half-dozen ladies always here at one time,” he said. “Then there are usually four or five others here at one time and come back in a couple weeks.”

Any Hy-Vee, Walmart, Target, Dollar General and Fareway grocery bags will do. The group isn’t picky.

“The consensus of the group that gets together is that we’ll take any bags that we’re taking out of the environment,” Heidemann said.

The group enjoys being able to help the environment by finding new uses for one of the peskiest pieces of trash you can find in the environment today. But they also like the idea of the mats one day helping people in need. Van Lewis said “Mat Mondays” has become a social event, too.

“It’s just fun,” Lewis said.

Heidemann keeps thinking back to the plastic bags she has seen scattered all across Iowa and the greater Midwest. The mats find a new use for those bags.

“The environmental part is what got me right away, because right away I was thinking, ‘Oh my gosh! That’s cool.’ Because I just hate that plastic out there.”