Come Learn and Share Information about Recycling, Crocheting & Recycled Crafting


Earth Day 2018

April 22, 2018 1 comment
Earth Day 2018


Happy Earth Day!
It’s been over 10 years of blogging here at My Recycled Bags. I promote these important big R’s- reduce, reuse, recycle, replenish and restore. I freely share and encourage crafting with recycled materials as well as ways to reuse plastic and other trash in our landfills.

Someone asked me recently if I was still into crocheting with plastic bags otherwise know as plarn. The answer is yes. Right now I am working on a crocheted Hobo purse bag pattern that I wrote from 10 years ago. I’m still recycling and still crocheting and still sharing all my patterns free here.

So on this Earth Day 2018, let’s continue to love and protect this Earth in every way we can.
Not just today but every day.

Mulberry Plarn Gift Basket

February 4, 2018 1 comment
Mulberry Plarn Gift Basket

I crocheted a gift basket using recycled white plastic bags cut into plarn for an upcoming library fundraiser. I wanted to color match the basket with a few cloths in the gift basket. So I used the same mulberry cotton yarn for the stripe on the basket as I did when I crocheted the cloths.


Here is the free plarn basket pattern which I used to crochet the basket. I used double strands of regular cotton yarn to crochet the matching stripe.

My camera doesn’t really capture the matching colors but the items do look good together and I am hoping people will bid on this for auction for the library.

The cloths were crocheted using the same mulberry I love this yarn for the corded cloth and within the large mandala crocheted cloth. Here are the links for the crochet patterns for the cloths.

Recycled Plastic Bag Clothes Pin Bags

December 8, 2017 5 comments
Recycled Plastic Bag Clothes Pin Bags

I have been working on an order of clothes pin bags crocheted from recycled plastic bags. These bags are crocheted using recycled plastic retail bags cut about an inch thick. The strips are joined by using the looping method to create what is called plarn.

Here is one more I crocheted with white plastic bags along with a few rounds of blue bags for an accent stripe. I love adding the ribbon to the projects as it spices up the recycled bag look.

I have crocheted many clothes pin “peg” bags over the years. This is one of my earliest plastic bag patterns that dates back to 2007 when I started my blog. Here is the free plarn clothes pin pattern.

Feel free to use the pattern to crochet your own recycled clothes pin bag or for charity work. It is also fine to sell the clothes pin bags you make using my pattern and please just provide pattern credit to My Recycled Bags. Also I do acccept orders for this bag and have one available for immediate purchase at my products page.

Dual Handled Recycled Plastic Tote

October 3, 2017 3 comments
Dual Handled Recycled Plastic Tote

I have a new resource for brown plastic bags! Local Safeway stores have gone back to the brown plastic retail bags and I just love recycling them into new reusable tote bags.

Here is the recycled plastic bag or plarn tote bag I crocheted with the brown retail sacks. I also used some red plastic newspaper bags that an on-line friend sent me that her Wall Street Journal was delivered in. The red bags were just right to compliment the brown bags with the red writing on them and made for a nice stripe on the tote bag.

But the special thing about this recycled tote bag is the dual handles. It has the normal hand grip handle in the middle and also a 30 inch long shoulder strap. So you can either grip the bag with your hands or throw the long strap over your shoulder.

I followed one of my basic crocheted plarn tote bag patterns found here but with a few modifications. My changes were for the first six rounds, I worked single crochet (SC) stitches

Crocheted Plarn Basket of Goodies

August 17, 2017 1 comment
Crocheted Plarn Basket of Goodies

Just sharing my latest crocheted recycled plastic bag or plarn basket filled with goodies for an upcoming fundraiser. I crocheted black and orange items in a local school’s colors to fill my basket.

The basket was crocheted using my plarn basket pattern with mainly white plastic bags. I added one row of black and then orange plastic bags for the stripes. Here is all the goodies I added to the finished basket for the charity auction.

The black scarf was crocheted using

Recycled Plastic Water Bottle Holder

June 5, 2017 1 comment
Recycled Plastic Water Bottle Holder

As you might expect, I have a huge stash of white plastic bags. People give me bags all the time to recycle. They know I use them to make plarn and crochet them into new useful things. So this is my latest project, a large water bottle holder.

This water bottle holder is designed to hold a large Nalgene reusable bottle or a 32 ounce water bottle. I used this free crochet pattern to make the water bottle carrier but with a shorter strap. The original pattern calls for a long strap that can be worn across the body. This water bottle holder has a

Recycled Mini Scrubber

May 19, 2017 1 comment
Recycled Mini Scrubber

Here is an easy recycled bag project to make a mini kitchen scrubber. All you need is a small amount of yarn and about 3 plastic lettuce nets. I just save the green plastic nets that my lettuce comes in from the grocery store.

This simple scrubber is made by crocheting the recycled plastic diagonal scrubbie pattern.

I have a picture tutorial here on how to cut and assemble the plastic lettuce nets. You just need to assemble 3 nets to crochet a 4 inch scrubbie along with a small amount of

Striped Ultimate Recycled Tote Bag

May 7, 2017 4 comments
Striped Ultimate Recycled Tote Bag

I crocheted this recycled plastic bag tote using the free ultimate recycled grocery bag pattern. It is crocheted with recycled brown Safeway grocery bags and a few green bags added for stripes.

Lots of people ask how many bags does this project need to complete? It really depends on the bags and how you cut them. I cut these bags each 1 inch wide to create the plastic bag yarn or plarn. For the brown bags, I did a calculation to see how far one single bag made into plarn would go on each round. I found that it took about 1.8 bags to crochet a single round on the main body of the bag. I kept a count and used about

Hashbrowns Bags Recycled

March 28, 2017 1 comment
Hashbrowns Bags Recycled

I have been saving hashbrowns 5 pound plastic bags to recycle them into a crocheted basket. I saved 5 bags and cut them into plastic bag yarn or plarn. Because the bags are made from thick plastic, I cut one long continuous strip about 1/2 inch wide. I joined the strips together with a knot which I then just hid within my stitches as I worked the basket.

Each bag cut in a single 1/2 inch wide strand equals 23 yards of plarn. When I started this project I had 5 bags cut up and began crocheting the basket using my small recycled plastic basket pattern. Here is the link to crochet the project



About Me

Hello, I’m Cindy or aka RecycleCindy. Welcome to my blog site that is dedicated to recycling and crafting. I love to crochet and create crafts and other useful things from recycled materials. I share many free tutorials and patterns for creating recycled projects as well as other handmade items.


Here is a direct link to all my free patterns available here on My Recycled Bags.


Thank you for stopping by to visit and for your interest in My Recycled Bags!