Every week at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, part of St.

Stephen Parish, volunteers gather around tables for a kind of sewing circle.

Only their material of choice, plastic grocery bags.

- We've all become bag snobs.

You know, we all have all these preferred bags and colors and so on.

- They've become known as the St.

Stephen Parish Plarn Patrol.

Plarn being the term for the plastic yarn they use to crochet these mats.

The mats are then donated to the St.

Patrick's Center to be distributed to those experiencing homelessness.

It's a two-fold thing.

It helps the environment and it helps the homeless.

And it's a good way to use your plastic bags, but you know, really, we should be using cloth bags.

>>But as long as we have these, we want to keep these out of the landfill.

And so what she does is she flattens them, and then all of us do is different aspects.

But then I fold them in a certain manner, and I cut off the parts that we can't use.

Some people flatten and fold, some people take the flatten and fold and cut the strips, and some people are taking the strips and weaving it together to make a long strip like corn.

And then you ball it up and then crochet.

We're making the corn.

We tie the balls to make the balls of plarn.

About two of these and a little more will make our mat.

And so we all put them together and then we crochet.

It looks beautiful too.

It is.

I'm not talented enough to do that.

But I can do this.

But it takes a team.

It takes a village, right?

Yes, sure.

Yeah, I crochet at home.

And I keep them company.

Yeah, that's important.

Yeah.

And so I heard, is it one of you who like have a record of like one a week?

Is that right?

Yeah, I try.

Yeah.

That's incredible.

Each mat is roughly three feet by six feet, uses around 600 plastic bags, and takes several hours of labor.

In the larger context of homelessness and environmental waste, it's a modest gesture.

The mats won't solve homelessness, and they won't eliminate plastic waste.

But for the volunteers who make them, that's not really the point.

In a world of problems that can seem impossible to solve, they're choosing to make one thing they can hold in their hands.

It's a good thing to come and be a part of something that's meaningful, that we can not only, it sounds like such a trivial thing to do, but at least it's something that we can do.

If we didn't need to use them at all, it would be the greatest gift and that's the biggest challenge.

This also isn't a new or unusual pastime, especially for church groups.

Plarn has been used for craft projects since the early 2000s, and turning it into sleeping mats has become a familiar volunteer effort in communities across the country.

Part of the appeal is practical.

Plastic bags are easy to collect, the costs are low, and the work offers volunteers a chance to gather, socialize, and create something together.

Some critics point out that there are other ways to direct time and resources toward helping people experiencing homelessness.

But supporters see these mats as a practical second life for material headed for the landfill, and a simple way to provide a little extra comfort and insulation to someone spending nights outdoors.

It came as a great surprise, I think, to all of us that it's become a thing.

We've really come to enjoy each other.

This is a very good community to be part of, and I appreciate all of these people.

Anyway, we've all become bag snobs.

It's the color that gets us along.

The color and the weight.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah.

So, that's the snob part.

I'll tell you my favorite bags are the Straub's bags because they're really shiny and they're a nice green color, but you have to cut them thinner.

And they're a little bit hard to crochet, but I like how they come out.

It takes quite a long time.

We said they would be priceless if you had to put a price on them.

Think about it.

You're driving down the highway, you're driving down the street, and you see plastic bags.

To start repurposing, to stop using them all together would be the greatest.