Other News Topics
Stories in the US
ReusableBags.com in the News
General Interest
Africa
Australia
Europe
Asia
Great Britain
Canada
Trashing Our Oceans
Biodegradable Bags
Testimonials & Reviews
Plastic Bag Industry
Retailers in the News
Plastic Bottles
Lead in Lunch Box Issue
Misc
|
Tales of the Weird
|
|
|
Weird, wacky and unusual news and stories involving plastic bags�
New York Times, 9.20.06
Where will plastic bags turn up next? Check out our photo gallery to see some of the other, more earthly, locations, that they have been photographed in.
With extra inspections showing no problems, NASA managers today cleared the space shuttle Atlantis for a Thursday landing after an extra day in space because of concerns about unexpected debris floating from the ship. NASA delayed a landing set for Wednesday and kept Atlantis in orbit an extra day while engineers tried to determine if a mystery object seen floating nearby indicated possible damage to the spacecraft. The shuttle program director, N. Wayne Hale Jr., said the mystery object unexpectedly seen by shuttle cameras was likely a plastic shim used to separate thermal tiles on the bottom of the orbiter.
Late Tuesday, one of the astronauts aboard Atlantis spotted a second object floating by a window and photographed it. Mr. Hale said the second object appeared to be a plastic bag mistakenly left in the cargo bay before launch. And today, astronauts spotted three other small bits of debris that looked like a piece of foil and plastic rings. Mr. Hale said that such so-called foreign object debris is not uncommon, but that NASA works to eliminate it.
NY Times article
Bloomberg, 10.3.05
Plastic will survive forever in landfill, or, if it is burnt, as it is in Japan, it can release toxic and carcinogenic particles into the atmosphere.
But a small Australian company called Plantic says it has a solution just add water and the problem will disappear.
The patented formula comprises 90 per cent cornstarch and other organic materials like water, fatty acid and oil.
Starch-based plastics are not new, Plantic’s Business Development Manager Mark Fink says, but Plantic is different.
"If I do this," he says pouring water on the product, "and count to three it starts to disappear, which is exciting."
But if you think a disappearing plastic is hard to swallow, have you ever tried eating normal plastic? because you can eat Plantic.
"If it (Plantic) is eaten, it’s not harmful," says Fink.
"But we don’t produce it as a food product, so for that reason we don’t eat it in public and we prefer not to promote it as an edible material," he says.
Plantic conforms to European standard of biodegradability and when placed on the compost heap, it will disappear within three months releasing water into the soil and carbon dioxide into the Air.
http://www.financialexpress.com/latest_full_story.php?content_id=
Akron Beacon Journal, 4.2.06
...Her mixed media wall sculpture, Split II, made with urethane resin, pigment, acrylic paint, string, wood and gesso, was inspired by discarded plastic bags caught in trees along the highway. "Sometimes they remind me of a balloon, sometimes they're like a flag waving or a flying kite," Ott said. She began by making baglike objects tangled in branche...
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/living/14239783.htm
RedNova.com - Dallas,TX,USA, 8.26.05
A "designer material" derived from plastic could help protect astronauts on their way to Mars
NASA -- After reading this article, you might never look at trash bags the same way again.
We all use plastic trash bags; they're so common that we hardly give them a second thought. So who would have guessed that a lowly trash bag might hold the key to sending humans to Mars?
Most household trash bags are made of a polymer called polyethylene. Variants of that molecule turn out to be excellent at shielding the most dangerous forms of space radiation. Scientists have long known this. The trouble has been trying to build a spaceship out of the flimsy stuff.
But now NASA scientists have invented a groundbreaking, polyethylene-based material called RXF1 that's even stronger and lighter than aluminum. "This new material is a first in the sense that it combines superior structural properties with superior shielding properties," says Nasser Barghouty, Project Scientist for NASA's Space Radiation Shielding Project at the Marshall Space Flight Center.
To Mars in a plastic spaceship? As daft as it may sound, it could be the safest way to go...
http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/220862/protecting_astronauts_w
About.com - Michelle Carr and Pat Veretto, 8.17.05
Frugal people can find a way to do anything cheaper, and with free material like plastic bags, the uses you come up with are amazing - like making rope.
A long time reader told me that he made a rope of plastic grocery bags to tie up packages and to tie items together. The way the bags were put together created handles for carrying.
Then Kathie wrote" "After loading my car the hatchback wouldn't close. The man who was helping me grabbed a couple of plastic bags, split them, then tied the 2 together and used it as rope to tie the hatchback down. I thought this so ingenious at the time and carry plastic bags in the back of my car now, just for tie downs!"
http://frugalliving.about.com/od/moneysavingtips/a/pbagrope080505
Associated Press, 3.15.04
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- It feeds the poor and helps clean the streets and rivers. Handy for the beach or gym, it's become one of the hottest fashion accessories in town. It's the ultimate garbage bag --a plastic tote made from trash.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,62661,00.html?tw=wn_toph
icNorthernIreland, 3.10.04
AN Ulster eco-warrior has invented an unforgettable alter-ego to help on her mission to get plastic bags banned.
Co Antrim's Shirley Lewis invented her 'Baglady' character while she was living in Australia's Blue Mountains, two years ago. Now the 58-year-old is a regular sight on the streets of Ballymena, dressed from head to foot in plastic bags.
Sorry! Article no longer available.
AFP, 2.18.04
Soiled plastic bags are being transformed into high-end fashion accessories and handy household goods under a bold recycling scheme in the Indian capital.
Aside from haute couture women's handbags, the project, being driven by the Conserve non-governmental environmental group, is churning out file folders, shoe-racks, storage boxes, table mats and coasters.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=143&art_id=qw107708346115
BBC News, 10.10.02
Jenny Kirkland is a South African woman who uses discarded rubbish to make designer hats, handbags and other accessories which are sold all over the world.
Speaking to BBC World Service's Everywoman programme, she explained how she has recruited 132 women to help her from the Obanjeni community in Kwazulu-Natal and in the process has helped them to provide for their families.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2310657.stm
Salon.com, 3.25.00
It takes the magic touch of an Oscar-winning director like Sam Mendes to turn the sight of a discarded plastic bag into something exquisite. ''I was trying to create a world that was banal but beautiful,'' Mendes explains, ''sterile and empty but filled with poetry.'' Did he pull it off? Put it this way: When was the last time you found yourself weeping at the sight of a plastic bag floating in the wind?
http://archive.salon.com/people/feature/2000/03/25/ball/
National Public Radio, 4.8.97
NPR's Melissa Block reports from New York on the bag snaggers, an unlikely trio who pluck plastic bags out of trees for fun. Fed up with the proliferation of plastic bags in trees in NYC these guys have turned yanking plastic bags out of trees into a sport, now preferring it to golf. Since this report, they’ve gone on to market this effective clean-up tool, and have enlisted the likes of Bette Midler to the cause of de-bagging New York’s trees. Click here to listen to the story
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1029052
Outside Magazine, 6.0.95
Author and self-described “bag-snagger,” Ian Frazier and friends make a crack clean-up team that has removed hundreds of plastic bags and other debris from trees. They’ve taken on everything from cottonwoods along the banks of the post flood Mississippi strewn with reams of flimsy strips of plastic, to countless shredded bag “fright wigs” in Manhattan trees. What started out as a lark is now an obsession. (We now carry Bag Snaggers in our store click here for details!)
http://web.outsideonline.com/magazine/0495/4f_trees.html
|
|
$5.95 Flat Shipping + FREE over $75 | Orders ship quickly!
