My Account
Warkworth School Year 3 student Nate Kidd-Edis and his grandmother Marion Kidd have kick-started an initiative to save turtles and give the homeless some comfort at the same time.
The idea will see members of the public crochet plastic bags into thin mattresses at the Warkworth Library as part of Junk Free July.
The mattresses will then be given to homeless people, but only in exchange for a bag of rubbish that they collect from public areas.
“The idea started because I wanted to help the turtles who are dying because they eat plastic that they think is a jellyfish,” Nate says.
“My gran showed me that in England they were making mattresses out of bags and by exchanging them for rubbish it should improve the ocean for the turtles.”
To collect the plastic, Northland Waste donated six wheelie bins to Warkworth School for a week allowing students to deposit bags into them.
“We want this project to make use of plastic that would otherwise go to landfill,” Marion says.
“We have been offered bags by a couple of stores in Warkworth, but we want to avoid using new bags at this stage as we are not promoting their production.”
In addition to students stepping in to help the initiative, wearable arts winner Sharleen Greer responded to a Facebook call to teach people how to crochet the bags together.
The event will take place at the library on July 6, at 3pm. All welcome.
