Re-purposed plastic turns trash into tote bags at St. Charles

Published 5:15 am Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Mountains of un-recyclable sheets of plastic wrap used to protect surgical equipment are being turned into hand-sewn tote bags for new parents at St. Charles Health System.

Bend Anesthesiology Group anesthesiologist Dr. Holly Graham saw the 60-by-60-inch polypropylene sheets and watched as they filled up giant garbage bags when the plastic was unwrapped from the equipment it protected. The impact on the environment weighed heavily on her.

This summer, inspiration struck as she and others at St. Charles Bend realized maybe the sheets of plastic wrap could be turned into something: Tote bags.

“The blue wrap keeps our instruments clean and it’s a product used nationwide,” Graham said. “It produces 200 million pounds a year and less than 2% is recycled. Most of it just goes into the landfill.”

Nationwide, about 19% of waste generated by surgical services in hospitals is the blue plastic sterile wrap that protects instrument panels, devices, gowns and other materials, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In Bend, Knott Landfill doesn’t accept this kind of plastic wrap for recycling.

“The goal is to find more use,” Graham said. “This wrap will make a sturdy bag. The bag design is really easy to do.”

Every time a patient checks out of the hospital, their belongings are enclosed in a single-use plastic bag. Graham wants to churn out enough of the recycled plastic wrap bags to send home with new families coming into the birthing center.

It could pose a real savings for the environment and for the health system, which gave away 5,000 of these single-use plastic bags in the month of January 2020, the year the health system has current data for.

“The material used in the wrap is durable and water resistant,” Graham said. “It makes for a very good bag. This is not a novel idea, people have been finding other uses for a while.”

St. Charles asks sewers to make hand-sewn masks

St. Charles asks sewers to make hand-sewn masks

Graham is asking the community of people who sew, who churned out thousands of face masks in the early days of the pandemic, to help with the sewing of the bags. She’s created an email address and hopes to get more sewing volunteers signed on. To volunteer to sew, email Graham at holly@2blubags.com.

Lindsey Grover, a Bend resident, was one of those who sewed masks during the early days of the pandemic when there was a shortage of personal protection equipment.

Sewing is a hobby for Grover, but when she heard about Graham’s plan, she wanted to start threading her needle.

“I used to work in the operating room,”Grover said. “I am familiar with this fabric. The material we’re making the bags with is called blue wrap. I had always hated that we threw so much away into the landfill.”

So far she’s turned out 15 to 20 bags and hopes to get the sewing machine in full operation to make more.

“It’s a good project to work on during the winter days,” Grover said. “I hope to sew quite a few in the few months.”