What began as an I.B. requirement has turned into a school-wide collection effort, one empty chip bag at a time.
Harrison Chang (’26), Hannah Lawless (’26) and Christian Rodriguez (’26) created the project to fulfill the C.A.S. component of the International Baccalaureate program, the graduation requirement that students complete a project involving Creativity, Action, and Service to benefit the community.
At first, many students didn’t realize what Chang was doing. That changed when he began walking around the lunchroom asking classmates for their empty bags.
Although chip bags might seem easy to collect, gathering the right materials has required more coordination than expected. To increase supply, the group came up with a system.
“So we’ve done this thing where if we eat any chips, sometimes what we’ll do is we’ll just empty the chip bags into Ziploc bags and then give the Ziploc bags to someone else in exchange for them, giving us empty bags. So they get more chips, and we get more chip bags,” Chang said.
The search for materials has extended beyond campus.
“We’ve done it everywhere. We’ve reached out to teachers, families, classmates. Reached out to neighbors, The hardest part is really just getting the right kind of bag because some of the bags that we try and use just don’t work at all,” Chang said.
According to Chang, not all chip bags are suitable. The blankets require bags with a shiny interior lining so they can be fused together.
“I just figured chip bags would work well. They’re waterproof, they’re insulators. We can recycle things,” Chang said. “We’re also trying to make them more accessible when it’s wet; we’re waterproofing them by laying recycled grocery bags over the top of the blanket. That way, water will roll right off of it, and it won’t stick to itself.”
The process of assembling is just as intricate as you would think, making the project even more significant.
“You just take an iron with no steam, put it on low or medium heat. Place the chip bags on top of you. You place them on top of each other, put a piece of parchment paper in between them, and just run over for a few seconds, and the aluminum latex compound will melt together and form a bond,” Chang said.
Because the blankets are made from used packaging, sanitation is an important part of the preparation process.
“We run them through soap, water, dry them, the whole thing. We also, of course, make sure there’s no food or crumbs on them”, Chang said.
So far, the group has completed one large blanket. However, the amount of material required has slowed production.
“Right now we’re just trying our hardest to get more materials, because it requires a lot of eaten chips, and a lot of chip bags,” Chang said.
Although the project was designed to meet a graduation requirement, Chang said the effort may continue beyond that timeline. The ultimate goal is to help benefit the homeless population of Tampa creatively and sustainably.
The movement doesn’t stop with the project, though.
“Even after the project ends, I’ll probably just keep recycling them because it’s easy enough. I won’t be going out and trading people bags of chips for more bags of chips or anything, but I’ll definitely just collect them when I see them and continue to make blankets,” Chang said.
