Boomerang Bags was founded by Tania Potts and Jordyn de Boer in 2013. The Avalon Beach Boomerang Bags group was the first on the peninsula to form and encourage the community to adopt the practice.
Together with Surfrider Foundation Australia and in support of their collaborative No Plastic Please Avalon 2015 campaign, local organisation Living Ocean hosted one of the first Boomerang Bags sewing bee on Tuesday 20 January 2015 at Avalon Community Centre.
The group has been meeting in Avalon Community Centre every Tuesday, apart from school holidays, ever since. On Saturday June 25 2016 Avalon Boomerang Bags was officially launched, complete with educational displays in Dunbar Park, a Surfrider Northern Beaches organised beach clean of Avalon Beach and some great music from The Big Sing.
Volunteers give their time to sew bags and other items from donated fabric or materials destined for landfill. These bags can be used as an alternative to plastic bags, and returned to Boomerang Bags dispensing units outside shops to be reused - thus they are a 'Boomerang Bag'.
The Boomerang Bags made are offered for use, and reuse, instead of the plastic bags which are responsible for the demise of much of our marine life and the shorebirds that live alongside our waterways
Of course they don't have to be returned - people can keep their Boomerang Bag handy for their next shop, extending the meaning. Although most plastic bag retailers state they have phased out the use of plastic bags, and the NSW Government finally banned them in June 2022, there is an ongoing need for the bags.
Since those early days this return to what was best in the first place has spread and more communities are taking on the challenge to rid themselves of the bags and packaging that will take several generations to disappear and even then won’t be totally gone.
Angie Barlow, one of the Avalon Boomerang Bags volunteers, brings us up to date for 2024, where members recently recreated those first sewing session photos:
Back in 2015 Pittwater Online News kindly ran an article about an Avalon community group that had been established to protect the community by replacing plastic bags with fabric bags.
Every Tuesday between 11am and 3pm a dedicated group of seamstresses volunteer their time and skills to make fabric bags for the local community. If you are passing the Avalon Recreation Centre when the ladies are sewing, you will hear the hum of the machines and see the lovely bags they produce, which are distributed throughout Avalon. This local community volunteer group has so far made over 50,000 fabric bags to help protect our precious environment.
"Say No to Plastics" initiatives have improved in the last decade, but there are still too many plastic bags being used, when fabric ones can be used time and time again and come in a diverse range of lovely materials to suit everyone from kids to grandparents. There are around 25 volunteers at Avalon Boomerang Bags who happily give their time and skills to help the community and the volunteers have developed close friendships whilst stitching and chatting.
Sadly this group of seamstresses will be unable to continue their work without modest financial support to pay rent for the use of Council facilities, insurance, and all the bits and bobs (and bobbins!) needed to sew the Boomerang Bags. Some of the sewing machines and overlockers are getting old and less reliable as they age, so the volunteers would welcome any community donations of machine repair/servicing and unused sewing machines that are in good working order to save them from landfill.
Underpinning the ethos of the group to provide ongoing community support, group founders have brainstormed various ideas to raise the $2000 needed annually to keep Avalon Boomerang Bags operational. The local Avalon community has been generous in its support of this group over the last decade, donating fabric, having a box of bags outside their business and sending new volunteers to learn or enhance their sewing skills. In fact, since reaching out to Pittwater Online News last week, the Avalon Boomerang Bags group has received a donation of $2000 from this publication, which will keep it operational for another year, and a brand new sewing machine.
The founders of Avalon Boomerang Bags would be grateful for any additional community support, or sponsorship that can be provided so that another 50,000 fabric bags can be produced over the next decade to help our environment and eradicate the use of plastic bags.
In an effort to raise money themselves, the Avalon Boomerang Bags group has some terrific Christmas themed fabric bags available, which is a great environmentally friendly alternative to wrapping paper.
Avalon Boomerang Bags Christmas themed bags
If you would like to donate to keep this community group sewing, or wish to purchase a bag, please visit the Avalon Recreation Centre between 11am and 3pm on a Tuesday during school term times or reach out by phone or on our Facebook page.
Visit: https://www.facebook.com/avboomerangbags
Phone: 0410 608 315
- Boomerang Bags for a No Plastic Please Avalon: January 2015, Issue 199
- World Environment Day And World Ocean Day 2016: Taking Action For A Living Ocean And Living Earth Locally: June 2016, Issue 266
- Avalon Boomerang Bags Opens The Way For A Plastic Bag Free Future: Invite to Launch - Front Page Issue 268
- Avalon Boomerang Bags Launched: A Stitch In Time To Save Your Seas And All In Them: June 2016, Issue 269 + Front Page Issue 269
- Avalon Boomerang Bags 2026 Profile
