fashion

Wear Your Recyclables on Your Arm
By Josh. Posted on 1:40:00 pm - Wednesday, May 16, 2007.

Recycling helps the environment, sure, but it can also help your accessories collection, just ask the folks at www.eco-handbags.ca.

The brainchild of Marisa Ramondo and a division of Alexram Internet Services, this Montreal-based online store specializes in eco-friendly handbags only.  Launched in the fall of 2006 the website features eco-friendly handbags bags from a worldwide stable of artists and designers.  The bags are made from a remarkably wide array of recycled and reused products.

No really, a remarkably wide array of materials, including but not limited to, get this: Candy wrappers, movie billboards, chopsticks, sails, soda pop tops, 35mm slides, bicycle inner tubes, record albums, CDs – should I continue – natural plants, zippers, denim, juice boxes, sweaters, carpets, felt, hemp, cigar boxes, even skateboards!

I know.  Skateboards?!?

They’re good for any and all of your bag needs, be it handbags, totes, purses, cosmetic bags, gym bags, yoga mat bags, even men’s shaving kit bags.

With artists and designers from all over the world it’s easy to find a bag to fit your needs or a designer whose designs you dig.  The designers involved in the website include CarpetBags, a UK-based retailer that, shockingly, makes handbags from vintage carpets; Shannon Hames, founder of FlatBags, who started out making her courier-style bags in the basement of her British Columbia home in 1996 out of old bicycle tire inner tubes and recycled vinyl.  To date Flatbags has used 13,800 feet of inner tubes; and Practically Purses creates individually designed purses out of recycled book covers.

And those are just three examples; the list goes on and on. 

Recently the Eco-Handbags gang participated in the Green Living Show in Toronto and was featured in its eco-fashion show to rave reviews.  Darryl Hannah even swung by the booth for a look-see.

Eco-handbags.ca doesn’t just showcase environmentally conscious and fashionable products for your shopping enjoyment; they also put their money where their mouths are.

As a member of 1% For The Planet, Eco-handbags.ca pays a voluntary earth tax and donates 1% of all sales to non-governmental and non-profit environmental organizations.

So, in review, they’re stylish, chic and environmentally friendly – suddenly it seems like you need a new purse, doesn’t it?

Tags: eco-friendly, fashion, hangbags, recycling

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