Eradajere Oleita thinks she may have a partial solution to two of our country's long-standing problems: garbage and poverty. It's called The Chip Bag Project. The 26-year-old student and environmentalist from Detroit is asking a favor of local snack lovers: Rather than throw your empty chip bags into the trash, donate them so she can turn them into sleeping bags for the homeless.
Chip eaters drop off their empty bags from Doritos, Lay's, to other favorites at two locations in Detroit: a print shop and a clothing store, where Oleita and her volunteer helpers collect them. After they clean the chip bags in hot soapy water, they slice them open, lay them flat, and iron them together. It takes about four hours to sew a sleeping bag, and each takes around 150 to 300 chip bags, depending on whether they're single-serve or family-size. The result is a sleeping bag that is "waterproof, lightweight, and easy to carry around," Oleita told The Detroit News.
Since its start in 2020, The Chip Bag Project has collected more than 800,000 chip bags and, since last December, it has created 110 sleeping bags. Sure, it would be simpler to raise money to buy new sleeping bags. But that's only half the goal for Oleita — whose family moved to the United States from Nigeria a decade ago in the hope of attaining a better life — and her fellow volunteers. "We are dedicated to making an impact not only socially, but also environmentally," she said.
And, of course, there's the symbolism of salvaging bags that would otherwise be abandoned in the trash and using them to help the homeless. It's a powerful reminder that environmental injustice and poverty often go hand in hand. As Oleita told www. hourdetroit. com, "I think it's time to show connections between these issues. "
