On Thursday night, the National Society of Leadership and Success (NSLS) and the Rotaract Club teamed up for a Plarn Night. Plarn nights are monthly events that these two clubs hold to network and make progress on the plarn project together.
“Plarning is the process of taking clean, plastic shopping bags and folding, cutting and stringing them together to create plastic yarn, aka Plarn,” according to senior chemistry major Mikayla Ney.
The plarn is then sent to Mercy Mats in West Allis, WI, who crochet the mats together and distributes them to homeless people in the Milwaukee area.
Though the steps are simple to create the mats, each mat requires 500-700 uncut plastic bags to make. The more people that are there to help cut and tie bags, the more mats can be given away.
NSLS president Ney said, “It’s such a simple project to be a part of. All you really need is a pair of scissors and some bags, and anyone can help out with it!”
The next Plarn night is March 12 at 7 pm in the Platteville Rooms, where the clubs will be teaming up with Sigma Alpha.
The two clubs have many plastic bag collection bins on campus, including by the information desk in the Student Center, and by the concession stand in Williams Fieldhouse.