Monica also planned how to stimulate the job market. She intended to provide work that would benefit local craftsmen and women’s organizations worldwide. Simultaneously, waste would be reduced significantly.

The handbag materials are milk cartons, juice boxes, telephone books, and newspapers. The craftspeople are artisans from across the globe. Designers are both staffed and sourced.

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Voltaic Systems is offering four bags in 2009. Voltaic bag are really mobile solar power generators designed to charge virtually all hand held electronics. They are a great item for ecopreneurists working in remote locations or with businesses needing to work remotely.

A Voltaic bag will keep your phone charged and give you enough power to use your laptop and PDA when away from traditional power sources.

The Voltaic website proclaims that “embedded in the outside of these solar chargers are lightweight, tough, waterproof solar panels. The new Generator produces up to 15 watts, powerful enough to fully charge a typical laptop from a day of direct sunlight. No other solar bag can do this! The smaller bags produce 4 watts of power so 1 hour in direct sun will power over 3 hours of iPod play time or 1.5 hours of cell phone talk time.”

Another bonus is that fabrics used to make the bags themselves are made from recycled PET i.e. soda bottles.

What are the drawbacks? Mainly price. Even at EQP the Backpack model shown runs $226. There are a number of less expensive solar-charger-only products on the promotional items market, however the Voltaic line is certainly at the top with regards to quality, usability, performance and power.

Take a look at their whole line on their website. The site also has more background on Voltaic’s commitment to the environment. Voltaic does sell individual bags to retail customers, however if you are looking for a group buy for branded items I suggest you contact your local promotional items dealer or us at proformagreen.com.

Bag Makers, Inc. has come out swinging in the nonwoven tote category with their new Big Thunder nonwoven tote bags. These bags are made from #5 plastic and like other nonwovens can be recycled wherever #5 plastics are accepted.

The Big Thunder’s claim to fame is not that it is eco-friendly - it is as much as any other nonwoven tote. The Big Thunder’s claim to fame is that it is huge - at 13W x 10 x 15H - and made on 100 GSM material the highest in the industry for standard run bags. That is a whopping 10 inch gusset. The bags rings in with a EQP price of just $2.22.

If you are an Ecopreneurist whose business requires a big bag to promote your big idea, your bag has arrived.

Here is Anna Marie from Bag Makers showing the Big Thunder off at the 2009 ASI show in Dallas.

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For more information on the Big Thunder visit the Bag Makers website or email us at info@proformagreen.com

As you know we really like the organic cotton totes from Gemline.

Well we often get questions about the source of this cotton and other organic cotton used in our industry so we decided to ask Gemline for some answers. Clif Jordan the Regional Manager (South West) for Gemline was nice enough to send some answers.

According to Clif the organic cotton for Gemline bags comes mostly from Pakistan and sometimes India. All cotton used by Gemline is fair trade product and is Certified Organic Cotton, which means a licensed third party international agency (in this case the Control Union headquartered in the Netherlands) certifies the cotton’s origin and its authenticity. Gemline also offers eco-friendly inks and provides more information on their inks on their website.

Although most bag construction is done overseas the imprinting is done in the United States, unless the order is large enough for a full overseas production, say 10,000+ units. Most orders are under 100 units.

If you want to contact Clif directly with questions on Gemline’s items his email is cjordan@gemline.com. The Gemline website also has details on many of their products, www.gemline.com. You can of course also contact me at info@proformagreen.com.

So the bottom line for Ecopreneurists is, if you have questions about your vendor’s sources ask them. If vendors can’t answer your questions, I suggest you move along to someone that can.

We have asked the same questions about organic cotton supplies to Norwood, Leeds and Debco Bag. We will post their responses - when we get them - as well.

This is a guest post by John Simonetta, owner of an eco-friendly promotional items consultancy (see proformagreen.com). John’s blogs are designed to keep us up to date on the “greening” of his industry.

Gemline, one of our favorite manufacturers for the style and quality of their green line of promotional items, is starting 2009 strong with the introduction of a number of new, green products.

In 2009 Gemline will start carrying nonwoven totes (#5 plastic) as well as totes from 51% Recycled PET fabric, (Leads also sells 51% Recycled PET products which they carry in their very successful Owl line).

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For 2009 Hit Promotional Products has come out with a Nonwoven Insulated shopper tote bag that their website claims is recyclable, reusable and hand washable.

The unit is made out of 90 gram non-woven, coated water-resistant polypropylene. They feature reinforced 23″ handles, a 9″ gusset, front pocket and zippered closure.

Since the tote is designed to keep food hot or cold it is a good promotional item for eco-friendly grocery stores, farmer markets, even travel agencies.

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Debco now offers a number of lunchtime totes made from at least 25% recycled content. These bags demonstrate the growing trend to make practical, green items available to marketers.

And with the slowing economy I would remind Ecopreneurists that there is likely a much wider audience for these bags as more and more folks are bringing lunch to the office both for economic (it is cheaper than eating out) and health (bringing in healthy foods and avoiding fast foods) reasons.

Simple non woven insulated lunch coolers like the Debco Bag #NW4517 are EQP $3.04 with a one color imprint. The Debco Bag #NW6915 (a square shape designed) are EQP $3.42.  Available in black, red, lime green and royal blue, the bag we seem to be having the most success with is the Debco Bag #NW4694 non woven 100 gram polypropylene insulated cooler pictured to the right. All these bags are made from 25% recycled material, and Debco lists them as biodegradable on the Debco website.

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Debco is now producing color versions of the econo natural 4oz shopping tote. The colors available are black, red, green, lime green, navy, and pink.

The econo tote is very popular with Econpreneurist as the price of these units -$2.11- for the natural color tote places them in range of the popular non-woven shopping bags that are becoming ubiquitous in grocery stores.

Why the popularity? Because organic cotton - any cotton - is biodegradable while most non-woven poly bags are not.

So this post was going to be about me being so excited that Debco is now offering their econo natural 4oz shopping tote in colors, wonderful colors.

According to Debco their overseas supplier uses Azo free dyes on all their bags color bags.  This dye is supposedly eco-friendly and non-hazardous, but they have not conducted any lab tests to confirm this 100%.  However Debco has volunteered to have it done for any client that requests it.

But that is not what I am going to write about.

Apparently - and I don’t know if it is because these guys are based in Canada - Debco is making a distinction between bags made from 100% natural cotton and their organic cotton bags. A distinction I have not seen before.

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My favorite part of the weekend? Tucked into a corner was Good Will Industries and D.C.’s own Goodwill Fashionista. For those of you who arn’t familiar with the Fasionista, she writes about how you can find amazing fashion right at your local Good Will shop. Finding gently used clothing and reusing is a concept that is nothing new to readers of this here blog.

What was even more great about the D.C. Fashionista being there, was she was teaching everyone how to make a market tote out of a t-shirt. Genius I say! T-shirts are definitely something Good Will always has in spades.

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This is a guest post by John Simonetta, owner of ProformaGreen, an eco-friendly promotional items consultancy. John’s blogs are designed to keep us up to date on the “greening” of his industry.

At the end of September Debco bag introduced the E4827 10oz Organic Cotton Shopper to round out their other offerings in this area of the 6oz and Econo 4oz Organic Cotton Shopping bags. It is good timing considering the end of the year Fall festiva

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I doubt that carrying a chic, designer bag topped your list. 

But with all of the eco-minded designers popping up, using alternative materials to craft high-end, contemporary creations worthy of a runway romp, you can do your part to save the planet, and look stylish doing it.

Here is a list of the must-have sleek and sustainable haute couture handbags available for the eco-savvy shopper:

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Non Woven Poly bags are great but many of our clients don’t like non wovens and keep asking when an inexpensive organic cotton tote would be available.

Well the new Econo Tote Bag from Debco seems to fit the bill at 14.75” W x 16.5” with runs under $2 for orders over 1000 units and starts around $3.50 for a small run of 50 units with one color imprint included. These bags are 100% natural organic cotton processed AZO-Free with no hazardous chemicals.

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Another example of the speed at which the green promotional products industry is changing is the second generation of the Organic Spa tote from the manufacturer Gemline.

Like many of the wonderful bags from this manufacturer, this tote is made from 100% certified organic cotton fabric and azo-free dyes.

However look at the front of the tote. This material originally was made of bamboo, it is now made from woven jute.

Why? We suspect a few reasons. Jute may be less expensive and it also makes for a more supple bag that is a bit lighter, easier to carry and easier to place embroidery or silk screening on.

The main point I want to make is that the time between Organic Spa Tote I and Organic Spa Tote II was less than 6 months. This normally would not happen with promotional items, but I have seen it in eco-friendly items again and again.

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Since their launch in 2006, Noon Solar has sold out of every product line within weeks after manufacturing. Based in Chicago, Noon Solar creates bags for those who are both eco and fashion conscious. Now you can enjoy that lunch in the park or drive to your next appointment all while charging your cell phone, PDA or digital camera using the sun’s power!

As the founders say “you can bury this bag in the backyard, but you’ll never want to”. Made of biodegradable materials like organic hemp and cotton these bags can skip the landfill (after you’ve removed, reused or recyled the solar panel and hardware). Although I’d likely give it away when I was done with it rather than throwing it in the compost, it’s nice to know it can be done.

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Ok, good. That’s just about everyone.

Raise your hand if you try and reuse them for random things like other trash bags and carrying lunch to work?

Great! I think that’s still a good chunk of you.

Now, raise your hand if you still have all these bags and still don’t know what to do with them but refuse to throw them away?

Yup, that’s what I thought.

Well you’re in luck because this week I am going to explore a bit about what to do with all those plastic bags. I’ve already told you about Conserve, a wonderful company that employs rag pickers in India to pick up plastic bags and then uses the bags to create the most amazing purses and totes. I’ve always wondered how to make bags out of plastic and knew that it involved fusing plastic together, but that’s about it. So I started to do a bit of research into what it take to do it yourself.

From the looks of these three tutorials it seems pretty simple. All you really need to fuse plastic are your plethora of plastic bags, an iron, freezer paper, parchment paper or other scrap paper, and a well ventilated area.

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It’s a good thing really, enabling you to BYOB (bring your own bag) on any numerous shopping excursions.

On one such recent shopping excursion to everyone’s favorite big box store, Target, I found another green offering to the tote world. Made of 100% organic materials, the cute market tote is available with sassy slogans like “Kiss me I’m Organic” and “I don’t do Plastic.”

While not hand made, it is refreshing to see organics and other eco-friendly materials and products making it to the mainstream. And with any of the Fabulous Fabrics, the totes could easily be recreated. Try using either of these projects. Just add your own eco slogan.

“DIY or Die!” anyone?

Out of all 7 projects, my personal favorite it the design from U-handblog, a TypePad-featured blog all about (you guessed it) making handbags. This bag (featured in the accompanying image) has a curved seam and reinforced straps, so no matter how much to put into this sucker, it will still feel comfortable on your shoulders. Don’t let the curved seam scare you off: Lisa does a fantastic job of providing step-by-step instruction and pictures on how to get the job done easily. She also provides directions on how to make a cute little storage pocket, so you can carry your new bag with you all the time (you know, in case that urge to buy some tasty organic peaches comes along). Curious just how much this little bag can carry? A whole heck of a lot: Lisa graciously posted a few images on her blog of the haul she fit into this homemade gem.

Being the greenies we are, using recycled or sustainable fabrics is the first choice when sewing your own creations. You can find a wide range of recycled fabrics just by shopping through any vintage or second-hand store; the drawback here is that you might not be able to find a shirt or pants with enough fabric for this particular projects. For something a bit more modern and colorful, check out my collection of eco-fabric links on my website.

Completed this project? Come back and post some pictures of your creation - we’d love to see them!

Image source: U-handblog