18. Eradajere Oleita has a tradition on her birthday of finding some ways to give back. So as her 25th birthday was around the corner in 2020, she started looking for her next project. She found it when she came across a video on the Internet about how to iron foil-lined (铝箔内衬的) chip bags into sleeping bags. Oleita said the video gave her the idea of the Chip Bag Project.
"This is a project that allows me to really bring two of my passions together, people and the environment," Oleita said. "We throw so much stuff away and never really think about where that's ending."
"It takes about four hours to sew (缝) a sleeping bag. Each takes around 150 to 300 chip bags, depending on whether they're single-serve or family size," Oleita told
The Detroit News. "Our sleeping bags are better than the cotton ones. They are waterproof, lightweight, and easy to carry around."
Once each sleeping bag is complete, it's packed with other donated winter necessities such as socks, gloves and hats to be given away to homeless people.
Since its start in 2020, the Chip Bag Project has collected over 800,000 chip bags and, as of last December, created 110 sleeping bags.
"Every time we get a chip bag we're taking something — something that's not going into our water." Oleita said. "And when we give somebody a bag, we're giving warmth, and we're helping a human life."
The Chip Bag Project is just the latest environmental project for Oleita. She has also worked with the Youth Energy Squad, a program that teaches students about environmental sustainability (可持续性). One of her first large projects was creating a 6-foot-tall Minion character out of recycled plastic bottles.
"Before, I felt like environmental things were not topics for people like me." Oleita said. "But now I believe that each of us can contribute to the future of the world by training people not to be careless with their things, and meanwhile, helping people in need."