One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia

by Miranda Paul
Illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon

In Njau, Gambia, when people were done with a plastic bag, they just dropped it in the dirt and there it would sit until one bag became a pile of 10, then 20, then 50, then 100.  Animals started getting sick from eating the bags and people got tired of the mounds of plastic.  Isatou Ceesay decided to do something about it.  She collected the bags, washed them, and cut them into strips and then taught herself to crochet.  She crocheted the plastic bags into new purses that she sold to by new goats for her farm.  Many people laughed at her idea, but Isatou believed in her dream and made it come true!