Combatting Litter, One Chip Bag at a Time

Alex Boy teaching us the ways of chip bag wallets

Salvadorans have a junk food addiction. Much like in the States, chips and soda are not only common here, they are a huge problem that lead to diabetes, gastritis and obesity. The chips down here are almost exclusively made by a company called Diana. So if you want chips, people here will ask if they can have some Diana's. Alternatively they are called churros. You can buy a bag of Diana's for as little as 10 cents at any tienda in the country. There are probably about 50 flavors, and that is not an exaggeration. The other thing about Diana's is that each bag comes with about 5 chips in it. I mean, for 10 cents what do you really expect? So people will eat 5, 6, 7 or more bags in a sitting because it does not seem like they are eating very much. But of course, it adds up.

A small sampling of the variety of chips we have down here

Another issue with Diana's is that because they are so cheap, people with very little money will buy Diana's and try to fill up on them. This is a dangerous road to go down. We all know the empty fullness that chips can leave us with. And lets not even get started on the severe lack of nutritional value they have. I mean imagine letting your child eat chips for dinner every night. Often people down here do not consider what kind of health problems this could lead to down the road. Or maybe they do know, but they just do not care.

Ivania being a hand model for me

Enough though about the downside of chip eating. When Alex Boy, a volunteer who lives up the road from me (and should not be confused with Alex Girl), came for my Fiestas Patronales my host mom saw his chip bag wallet and was obsessed. Melida was even more obsessed when she learned that Alex had made the bag himself. He promised to teach us both to make them. So fast forward a couple of months and Melida, her daughters and myself are obsessed with making these wallets and bags and coin purses. Whenever we are out walking somewhere we always are scouring the roads for discarded chip bags. They are everywhere because Salvadorians, for the most part, love to litter. So we take advantage of the terrible ways of the country (excessive chip eating, littering) and collect the bags. Sometimes we only find one or two, but other times we come home with 50.

Once the bags are collected, we clean them and cut them into strips. They are then folded with a same sized strip of paper inside and connected to a chain of similarly folded strips. Once the chain is the length you want the bag to be, you connect the two ends to make a ring. Then you start again. When the bag reaches the desired height you stop and sew the rings together, close it at the bottom and attach a zipper. 

These bags are very inexpensive to make, but other volunteers that have community members make and sell them for a pretty nice profit. The bags go for anywhere between $5 and $10, depending on size. They can be custom ordered by size and color preference (mulit-colored, only one type of chip bag, silver). We are now taking orders!

Please note the left hand only nail polish. This is so her teachers won't see that she has her nails are illegally painted when they are saying their version of the pledge of allegiance

The beginnings of a line

A few completed rings

What it will look like once it is sewn together :)