Free Plastic Bags may be banned across Europe

Well this is an interesting story.  The Daily Mail published  a report about proposals to make shoppers pay for single use carrier bags.  Can you imagine what  a difference something like this would make to our environment?   You can read the full story on Mail Online

Sustainable toggles - problem solved

One of the problems we had with the design was the toggles.  In order to make the product as sustainable as possible it was important that even the toggles came from renewable or sustainable wood sources.  We considered all sorts of things but none were really good enough.  Then our manufacturer in Kolkata suggested the possibility of using twigs that had fallen from branches naturally.  We liked that idea, so after a little bit of digging around we managed to find a source.  As a result the bags will have toggles made from twigs that are literally collected from the floor, cut and shaped to our specification and then drilled.  We reckon it is pretty sustainable and they look fanatic as well!

European Commission to publish paper about plastic bags

The European Commission is to publish proposals in the spring designed to reduce the number of plastic bags used in Europe each year. Most of the 15,000 people who took part in a public consultation favoured an outright ban - but what are the options?  For a full report go to the BBC News website

More material arrives at the factory

The light blue has arrived as well.  How exciting :-)

The cotton has been dyed

The first batch of cotton has arrived.  We selected the colours for the bags very carefully and went to great lengths to make sure that they were absolutely what we wanted.  The dying works dye batches of around 500 kgs at a time and it is really exciting to get the first batch of coloured material in.  AND, all of the dyes we use are environmentally friendly Azo free dyes.  Brilliant.

A few small changes

Going to India provided us with the opportunity to chose the right organic cotton for the product.  When we first produced the bag they were 150 gram but with quite a loose weave.   So the strength in the bags came from the design and a heavier thread.  What we have now done is reduce the weight of the thread by using finer cotton, but at the same time increase the weave to something a lot tighter.  The result is a thinner, lighter and softer bag, that retains all the design features and importantly is at least as strong as the original bag.  It has also enabled us to keep the capacity of the bags the same but we can fold them into an even smaller pocket which means they are even more convenient.