South African Mom's Clever Way to Upcycle Paper Bags Goes Viral

Photo Credit: Lebang Kgosana

If you have kids and enough paper bags from the grocery store to build a small house, this South African Mom’s viral upcycling hack was meant to find you!

South Africa (28 January 2024) — A South African mom (who also happens to be award-winning broadcaster Lebang Kgosana) has made upcycling go viral after she gave grocery store paper bags a second chance at life in the most practical way.

Many South Africans know ‘the drawer’—AKA, the home of all the bags you say you’ll reuse but almost always forget to. Whether they’re material or paper, these bags often build up to the point where it wouldn’t be unreasonable to build a small house from them.

Beyond the discipline that is the art of reusing these bags lies another great idea: upcycling!

This is exactly what Lebang did when wrapping her children’s books for the school year, and with over 6.1 million views on TikTok, it’s safe to say that her idea caught the internet’s attention.

Taking bags that have made many a local smile in times of hunger before, mama Lebang gave the full run down on how to wrap the books neatly, while serving the purpose of reusable paper bags.

@lebangkgosana My online grocery shopping bags being recycled as we cover some school books!! #BackToSchool #fyp ♬ original sound – #LifeWithLebang

While some users had reservations surrounding how ‘aesthetic’ the books looked, others defended it, noting that there is a lesson covering those pages: being resourceful and mindful of materials that are meant to be re-used.

Some even nodded that they’d take the tip for their university notebooks, while teachers also agreed that the idea was one that needed to go further.

Even if you don’t have notebooks that need covering, a mindset that sees one product as potential for another is something makes a shift in our efforts for the Earth.