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Provo man turns plastic bags into organizational tools

Posted at 10:00 PM, Mar 21, 2016
and last updated 2016-03-22 00:00:23-04

PROVO, Utah -- Mull is German for trash and it's also the name of an up and coming Utah company making strides in recycling.

It started as a senior project at Brigham Young University two years ago. Carter Zufelt, of Provo, was searching for a unique way to highlight the beauty of recycling.

Zufelt, designer and founder for Mull, said he tried smoking, heating, heating in test tubes anything he could think of to transform the plastic bags.

“Through these crazy experiments we actually found something that worked,” Zufelt said.

Experimenting with the elements, Zufelt found two key combos to make a plastic bag into something else, heat and consistent pressure.

“It was amazing, it was kind of like those long months of pain and work finally paid off,” Zufelt said.

Zufelt started experimenting when he found out the average American family uses 1,500 plastic bags each year.

“I realized there’s plastic trash everywhere -- we see it in mountains, in lakes and bushes and trees,” Zufelt said.

Since plastic bags make a mess of the environment, Zufelt said, he's now making them into organization tools. Each one is made up of 100 to 1,000 plastic bags.

“It’s cool to see something so small and not refined become something refined,” Zufelt said.

Zufelt's goal is when you take plastic bags home they are all recycled.

“We’re more interested in reducing the plastic in the environment and now that that’s happening it kind of will help us in the future continue to make a difference,” Zufelt said.

For more information or to back the idea, visit: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/83900559/mull-rings-dice-and-more