jillaine

While poking around the Internet trying to decide which batting to use for my latest quilt project, I stumbled upon batting that is made out of recycled water bottles. Sounds like a good thing, environmentally, right? Told my environmentally-conscious husband about it, and he wrote the following to the company that makes the batting; other quilters might be interested in reading:

"Please watch this documentary about plastic in its myriad forms and consider that your product is very likely ultimately damaging to life. It may divert the plastic bottles, but only temporarily. One could argue that plastic that goes to a landfill in bottle form will be more safely sequestered from biological cycles than batting fibers that will enter the water stream when quilts are washed or end up in the indoor air as the fibers slowly abrade inside a quilt. Wool or cotton batting is more likely biologically benign. http://www.bagitmovie.com/ Sincerely, -- concerned husband of an avid quilter"

ghostrider

You don't mention the name of the batting you're talking about (and I don't randomly click on links provided) so I don't know if this is a duplicate. Quilters Dream, makers of some of the very best batting currently available, in my opinion, also makes a batting from recycled plastic bottles. It's called Quilters Dream Green. I haven't used it yet, but I have a sample and it seems quite nice.
http://www.quiltersdreambatting.com/dream-green.htm

As for your husband's efforts to stop the use of plastic in all it's shapes and forms, it ain't gonna happen so the best we can do is try to reuse what we can and be considerate in our disposal of the rest.

BellaBoo

I'll pass on the recycled batting. I don't care much for recycled anything other then disposable consumables.

quiltstringz

Well I am not sure about the Plastic issue, but I have used the Quilters Dream Green batting and love it. I have several friends who use it a lot also.

jillaine

The BagIt documentary opened up my eyes about recycled plastic. Trying to minimize my use of all plastic as a result. What my husband is trying to point out is that plastic in batting is worse than plastic bottles in landfill because it can more easily get into the water and into animals and into us in way that is very unhealthy for all. The documentary does a very good job of illustrating and explaining the bigger picture of this.

auntpiggylpn

I have this documentary saved on my DVR. It's been on there for about a month. I think I will take the time to view it this weekend. There is a purpose for plastic in our environment, just like there is a purpose for all the other pollutants. However, everyone needs to make an effort while on this earth to do whatever they can to save the environment. I'm not an extremist or an activist. I don't always throw that plastic bottle in the recycle bin because the regular trash is sooo much more convenient. Everyone just needs to do what is important to them.

ghostrider

I can comprehend the chances and subsequent dangers of asbestos fibers escaping into the environment, but not batting fibers. Sorry, not at all convinced.

Patti25314

I've now watched the first 12 minutes, and it looks like the whole film is about plastic bags -- not bottles. I agree completely about using your own bags instead of grabbing plastic grocery store ones when at all possible. But Dream Green batting is made from recycled bottle, and it is a wonderful product. It "sticks" to fabric as well as Warm and Natural batting. I like the idea of taking those plastic water bottles out of the equation. Let me know if I need to watch more of the movie, but already doing my part about bags.

jillaine

Patti, you're right that the documentary initially focuses on plastic bags, but the same concerns apply to plastic bottles (or anything else plastic for that matter). Later in the film, he gets into the limits of recycling plastic which was really an eye opener for me.

PaperPrincess

I made a quilt from recycled shirts and used Dream Green recycled batting to complete the theme. The batting doesn't have much loft, but quilted well. The quilt has been washed several times and laundered well.