I'll have to be honest: I'm disappointed with my bean bag sofas. When I moved into my unfurnished flat, they seemed like the perfect solution: cheap, malleable and comfortable. They are the first two, but surprisingly enough, not the third. Over time, they've become saggy and un-supportive. Not the place to sprawl out for hours with a book or a bit too much Star Trek. The "beans" supplied with the original purchase, squash down and somehow, despite the design (compartmentalised arms and seating parts) the whole edifice becomes pathetic. "Refills" are available but who knows where from and how these monstrous polymers come to be? Not recommended for the ecologically minded. By which I mean, not recommended at all.
And besides, I already have my own solution: shove them full of plastic waste. This has been a satisfactory solution, but not a perfect one - for one thing, it erodes the incentive not to purchase plastic in the first place. This is probably stupid, since the fact that I'm not going to throw the plastic away doesn't mean it won't eventually be thrown away, and doesn't stop it from being manufactured in the first place. (Supply and demand. Yuck). For another, it's subject to the same flattening problem as the beans: shapeless and screwy, it all just gets squashed by the weight of time, entropy, and most of all, my arse.
Then, only yesterday, it occurred to me: why not shove some ecobricks in there too? It's perfect. Ecobricks hold their shape. So I started to cram some in there, packing the softer plastic, beans and other scraps already in there around them.
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| Full of beans. |
I found I could fit four, end to end, along the back end of the larger of my two sofas, and a couple in each arm. The next set I make can go into the very bottom, eliminating any further sagginess (sometimes a sofa, filled only with the original beans, gets so saggy you're virtually sitting on the floor).
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| Also included: previously worn trousers |
You see, making #ecobricks is harder than you might expect. It isn't stuffing plastic bottles full of plastic - well, it is, but there's some technique required. A 2-litre plastic bottle is supposed to weigh at least 660 grams once made into an ecobrick, but I've barely been able to make one heavier than 400g. (Visit https://www.ecobricks.org/how/ for tips on how to avoid this kind of failure). That's because you want them dense and sturdy enough if you're actually going to build anything out of them.
But inside of a sofa, none of that matters. You don't want a dense and sturdy sofa. You don't want a shapeless sofa either, which let's be frank, is what a bean bag sofa really is. You want something in between. And so: inadequate eco-bricks are the ideal solution. I was considering removing all the plastic from my failed attempts and starting all over again, cramming them back up to the appropriate weight, but now there's no need, which is a relief. (The amount of plastic you can actually cram into one if you really put the work in, is quite remarkable, too, but does take time). It means I can shove all my failed attempts into my sofa, enjoy a more comfortable sitting experience, and start the next batch with something much more solid in mind.
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