Eradajere Oleita believes he has a partial solution to two of our country’s persistent problems: garbage and poverty. It’s called the Chip Bag project.
The 26-year-old student and environmentalist is from Detroit. She asks chip lovers: rather than throw empty bags of chips in the trash, donate them so she can turn them into sleeping bags and donate them to the homeless.
Chip eaters drop off their empty bags at two locations in Detroit: a print shop and a clothing store, where Oleita and her volunteers pick them up.
After sanitizing the bags of crisps in hot soapy water, they open them, lay them flat, and iron them together. They use padding and linings from old coats to line the interior.
It takes about four hours to sew a sleeping bag, and each takes about 150 to 300 bags of crisps, depending on whether they are individual or family-sized. “The result is a waterproof sleeping bag that’s lightweight and easy to carry,” Oleita said.
Since its launch in 2020, the Chip Bag Project has collected more than 800,000 bags of chips and, last December created 110 sleeping bags.
Of course, it would be easier to raise money to buy new sleeping bags. But that’s only half the goal for Oleita.
His family left Nigeria for the United States ten years ago in hopes of a better life, and his fellow volunteers. “We are committed to having an impact that is not only social but environmental,” she says. And, of course, there’s the symbolism of recycling bags that would otherwise land in the trash and be used to help the homeless.
