Despite being called Boomerang Bags there is no expectation that they be returned to the stands, as long as each family only takes one or two.
Community-minded people up and down the country will be firing up their sewing machines on Saturday, taking part in the first national Boomerang Bag sewing bee.
The Cambridge collective will be joining in, churning out reusable bags from 1.30pm until 5pm at the Cambridge Health and Community Centre on Taylor St. Their target from organisers is 13 bags to ensure that 1,000 will be made across the country during the sewing bee – no trouble for the locals who normally make between 110 and 150 at their weekly Sunday sewing session.
The dedicated Cambridge group has been producing Boomerang Bags since late last year, encouraging people to take one or two per family to use as part of a drive to increase the use of reusable bags in preference to plastic ones. Since they started, the collective has made 2,920 reusable bags that quickly get snapped up from the three stands in Cambridge.
The national sewing bee is part of Plastic Free July, an awareness month encouraging people to look at their use of single-use plastics. It’s also a good time for anyone with more than a couple of the Boomerang Bags at home, for whatever reason, to give the spares a wash and re-hang them on one of the collective’s stands outside New World, Fresh Choice or Wholly Cow. Some of the bags have found their way to Op shops, one of the organisers Sam Brydon said, adding that they would much rather any unwanted bags went back onto their stands for someone else to use.
With each bag taking around 45 minutes to produce, the Cambridge group has spent an estimated 2190 hours making these bags to reduce the town’s plastic load. Which more than 90 days. The group expects to crack the 3000 mark at the sewing bee this weekend, with special mention to Dot Harding who has made more than 600 and Gloria Scott who has cranked out more than 400 bags so far. What an amazing effort.
