Warm And Dry In A Bivi Bag Made From Crisp Packets

An incredible project is seeing recycled crisp packets turned into sleeping bags to help the homeless survive a cold winter on the streets.

Pen Hutson knew that a charity she worked with simply didn’t have enough sleeping bags for everyone who needed one, reports Teesside Live. So she began to make the sleeping bags out of empty crisp wrappers, by ironing them together in her hometown of Hastings, in East Sussex. “With homelessness on the rise, the demand is ever growing,” said the 45-year-old, who started her life-changing project in November to make as many bivi bags as possible.

“It takes around four hours and 150 crisp packets to make one sleeping bag,” explained Pen, who has also now developed survival sheets that only use 44 crisp packets, and even over the shoulder bags. After working alongside the charity ‘Surviving the Streets’ for the past year and a half, Pen explained: “I was lying awake in bed one night thinking what would it be like waking up in a crisp packet?”

The idea started there, a social media page was made for the project and it reached 3,000 followers in November 2019 so quickly that is crashed the page. Crisp packet donations were made from YMCA and the general public. The best packets to use need to be washed out, dried and cut open to a landscape format.

With so many donations, the cost of making the bags and survival sheets has only been the cost of having the iron on, used to seal materials together. Plastic sheets have been donated from Hastings Sofa Company, near where Pen lives, and this plastic would have ended up in landfill otherwise. “I don’t want to be putting more rubbish on the streets, so they need to be good quality,” she continued.

The feedback Pen has received from the homeless using them has all been positive, with one man even using the same bivi bag since November. Feedback included how warm the bags were and how the small holes for condensation being moved from the feet to hip area is helping keep their feet warm during these winter months.

28 bivi bags and 20 survival sheets are currently being used on the streets, the survival sheets being a particular hit due to stopping damp and being easily transportable as they can be folded up small. Pen understands they are “not a lifestyle for 24/7, but certainly for survival”.

The design has been improved to include a window and wider opening to make getting in and out easier. She has tried to prioritise deprived areas first.

“It’s a non-stop project that I will continue until the demand is not there any more,” she continued.