BusinessWeek has an article about entrepreneurs creating companies using other people’s junk – “Two years ago, Eli Reich was a mechanical engineer consultant for a Seattle wind energy company when his messenger bag was stolen. The environmentally conscious Reich, who rode his bike to work every day, decided that instead of buying a new one, he would simply fashion another bag out of used bicycle-tire inner tubes that were lying around his house. Soon compliments on his sturdy black handmade messenger bag turned into requests. “That was the catalyst,” says Reich, who obtained a business license, gave up his day job, and quickly launched Alchemy Goods in the basement of his apartment building. The company’s motto: “Turning useless into useful.”” [via] – Link.
Related:
- Alchemy Goods – Turning useless into useful – Link.
- Homemade messenger bags – Link.
- Homemade Nintendo messenger bag – Link.
- Boombox messenger bag – Link.
- HOW TO – Make a duct tape messenger bag v. 2.0 – Link.
- Recycled Banner Golden Mean Messenger Bags – Link.
- Recycled Rubber – It’s more fun to make a laptop bag from an old wetsuit than it is to buy a new one. MAKE 02 – Page 40 (log in).
8 thoughts on “From garbage to gold…”
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$148 for a messenger bag made from garbage???
A CafePress custom messenger bag is $19.
Oracle1729 – which one do you think will end up in a landfill first?
phillip, possibly the CafePress one because if you pay $148 for a bag you’re going to take better care of it than a $19 bag.
I think that’s a lot to pay to keep a few inner tubes out of the garbage though. For my own use I bought a bag for around $40 that’s mad of tough canvas, it will probably outlast the tube bag, looks much better, and is is 1/4th the price. It also has a lot of pockets for small accessories I need to carry with, This inner tube bag doesn’t seem to.
If you want to help the environment, buy the $40 bag and donate $108 to greenpeace, wwf, or something similar.
luckily, there is enough room in this universe for inner tube bags and cafe press bags to co-exist :)
i tend to like the maker-made and maker-biz