Teach the old bag new tricks

With the death of plastic bags in Australia its time for multiuse bags to step in and fill the void.

Yes, we have the plastic style reusables already, but lets up the ante an amp or two…let’s try bags made from waste!

I have seen some funky woven bowls made out of electronic wire, purses made from tin cans. How about recycled fibres from food waste?

Well maybe now you can. Two quick examples of food waste based materials are: Pineapple Leather and Orange Silk. Yes, a team in Italy have been working on magically turning the 700,000 tons of Sicily’s orange juice industry’s waste into silky thread. The fibres from pineapple leaves have been turned into Piñatex, boosting local Filipino farmers incomes as well as making a great animal and environmental friendly leather substitute.

Just combing the beach could give us amazing works of art in the form of a bag, judging by the beach comber art I have seen on display locally.

Lets not forget the companies here, leaving their merch in the lurch… we could smash the merchandising side of designer bags. Huge funky patterns in brand colours, large prints and standout branding. LED’s, animations, drawstring bags, backpacks, print all over cut ’n’ sew materials, wearable shopping smart technology…it’s endless…

I feel if the big supermarkets alone started a creative sustainable recycled ‘bag war’ things could really hit a high gear and we would never regret giving up our evil yet convenient plastic habit.

Click here for an interesting A-Z list of sustainable fibres (some ancient, some cutting edge) to get your own ideas flowing…