{"id":963387,"date":"2026-07-27T22:58:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T22:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/963387\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T22:58:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T22:58:23","slug":"houston-students-turn-thousands-of-plastic-bags-into-an-award-winning-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/963387\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston students turn thousands of plastic bags into an award-winning business"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\"><strong>Houston<\/strong> \u2013 Four Houston students are proving that one person\u2019s trash can become another person\u2019s everyday essential.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Incoming seniors Emmanuel Wieczorek, Ananya Menon, Antonio Psyllos and Haasini Yatagiri of The Village School created <a href=\"https:\/\/nextusebags.lovable.app\/ \" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextusebags.lovable.app\/ \">Next Use<\/a> a student-run business that transforms donated plastic grocery bags into handcrafted tote bags and pouches.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Inspired by the growing problem of plastic pollution, the team has collected more than 3,500 plastic bags from the community. They layer and heat-press the bags into a durable material before sewing them into reusable products.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Their innovative business recently earned national recognition at Junior Achievement\u2019s Future Bound National Competition, where they received the Johnson &amp; Johnson STEM Innovation Award.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">The students say their mission goes beyond making bags. They hope to expand plastic bag collection sites, continue growing their business and eventually donate 10% of their profits to environmental causes that protect marine life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">As Plastic Free July shines a spotlight on reducing single-use plastics, the founders of Next Use hope their business inspires others to see how small changes can make a big impact.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston \u2013 Four Houston students are proving that one person\u2019s trash can become another person\u2019s everyday essential. Incoming&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":963388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5130],"tags":[43635,4345,15310,358,3187],"class_list":["post-963387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-giving-back","tag-houston","tag-recycle","tag-texas","tag-tx"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116994422023952964","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=963387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/963388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}