A SELFLESS teenager has spent his lockdown collecting hundreds of empty crisps packets - in order to make sleeping bags for the homeless.

Army cadet Rhyder Cameron-Wickes, 16, has been keeping himself busy by learning how to fuse together hundreds of empty crisps packets in order to create a warm, well-insulated sleeping bag.

Each sleeping bag - or bivvy bag, designed to slip over the top of a regular sleeping bag to provide an extra layer of warmth - requires 150 empty crisps packets, making it quite a time-consuming process.

Cameron, from March, Cambs., has to ensure the packets are all cleaned and flattened, before melting the edges together with an iron on a low heat, with a tea-towel on top, to form large sheets.

He must then cover these sheets with a large plastic sheeting, also ironed on, and join these together to form the bivvy bags - which will fit around a regular sleeping bag as well as personal possessions.

Cumberland & Westmorland Gazette: Rhyder Cameron-Wickes a cadet Sargent in the Cambridgeshire army cadet force with one of his home-made crisp packet sleeping bags for the homelessRhyder Cameron-Wickes a cadet Sargent in the Cambridgeshire army cadet force with one of his home-made crisp packet sleeping bags for the homeless

Cameron, who is a member of the Cambridgeshire Army Cadet Force (ACF), has so far only completed one of the bivvy bags, having only started making them a couple of weeks ago.

But, after advertising for empty crisps packets on the Cambridgeshire ACF Facebook page, he has now had over 500 packets donated to him - setting him well on the way to creating more.

The "rewarding" crafts project is also helping the teen to complete the Volunteering section of his Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award.

Cameron said: "I don't have a set number of bivvy bags that I am trying to make - it's just how many I can make in the next year.

"I have to do my Duke of Edinburgh Volunteering for 12 months, so I will be doing this until at least the end of 2021.

"Each bivvy bag takes about six hours to make, and I usually do it in about three or four sittings. So I could potentially make quite a lot of them over the next 12 months."