Recycle your leftover shopping bags into a DIY jump rope; start to create and make from plastic bags with this easy project.
In The No-Nonsense Guide to Green Parenting (Green Books, 2016) author Kate Blincoe explains that it’s not about being perfect — it’s about giving it a try, feeling the benefits for your family, and having fun while you do it. This guide provides essential advice on food and eating, eco-buying, learning and playing, family-friendly foraging, growing plants and food with your family, green days out, activities and parties, green parenting in the city, and balancing your green ideals in a busy life.
Kate’s pragmatic approach will inspire you to balance green living with the realities of raising children. This excerpt describes how an old past-time, skipping rope, can easily be made eco-friendly with recycled materials.
Eco-Friendly Jump Rope
However hard you try, plastic bags have a habit of accumulating. This is a fun way of using them up, but you could also use old T-shirts or jeans. If your child hasn’t mastered skipping yet, then this is perfect for a tug of war.
Materials:
- 12 plastic carrier bags
- scissors
- gaffer tape
Instructions:
- Cut open the plastic bags open so they are flat, then cut off the handles so that you are left with a rectangle of plastic.
- Now cut this rectangle into long, roughly even strips, about 5-10-cm wide.
- Tie the strips together to make a length that is about 20-cm longer than your required skipping rope and trim off any excess plastic sticking out from the knots.
- When you have 12 lengths ready, tie half of them to a chair (or get someone to hold them firmly).
- Plait these six lengths together.
- Repeat for the other six. Now firmly twist the two plaits together and tape each end to form the handles.
More from The No-Nonsense Guide to Green Parenting:
- Tips for Choosing Environmentally Friendly Toys
- Sensory Bottles for Babies
- Gooey Silly Putty for Preschoolers
Reprinted with permission from The No-Nonsense Guide to Green Parenting by Kate Blincoe and published by Green Books, 2016.
