Americans use billions of bags every year. Pulling these disposable goods out of the waste stream would promote sustainability on many fronts. Our goal was to find a new use for these bags as insulation. Typical wall insulation works by using a high air to mass ratio. It seemed reasonable to assume that plastic bags could replicate this. With guidance provided by ASTM we constructed a semi-guarded hot-box. With limited equipment the box allowed us to engage in a controlled experiment. Choosing what seemed to be a reasonable density of bags, we compared changes in temperature over a series of hour long tests to those we found from standard R-13 fiberglass batt insulation. Based on the temperature differential measured from using a density of 151 bags per cubic foot, we determined an R value of 9.43 for the plastic bags. 
Although this does not prove our hypothesis by meeting or exceeding an insulating value of R 13, we are hopeful that other bag densities or consistencies could surpass compete with standard insulation.
Abstract