Seriously, when was the last time you brought your Anya Hindmarch 'I'm Not a Plastic Bag' to the groceries and made it as your plastic bag's substitution?

I bet 9 out of 10, (If I couldn't say all of them) have never worn it as a groceries bag. I am one of supermarket and hypermarket lover, and I've never seen a single Anya Hindmarch's was worn as the substitute of their plastic bag. I've seen one, however, was worn by a lady at Sogo Supermarket as a shopping bag in her shoulder, and she still carried some plastic bags for her groceries. Now, that's what I called Ironic.

That 'I'm Not a Plastic Bag' bag was actually made by Anya in order to increase awareness of green and eco-fashion. Plastic as one of the hardest non-biodegradable material were widely use around the world, which caused mountain of plastic trash materials, followed by the global warming - flood - and much more nature disaster's effects that gain huge attention among the world (include fashion world) nowadays.

She succeeded to increase the awareness of her handbag, but I am not really sure about how far it has increased the awareness of green and eco-fashion.

However, if Anya's bag claim itself as 'a not plastic bag', on the contrary, these pieces on the pictures shown above ARE trully plastic bag. They were made by Jajang Supriatna, the resident of Kampung Bojong Buah Desa Pangauban, Kecamatan Katapang, who created the bags from some instant noodles' packaging, soap and detergent's plastic case, and also some other plastic cases.

According to the article that I read, he has been doing that for months (the article was written on Sept 8th, 2006 - We should be proud that in our country, some people have been really aware about that topic since several years ago) . The production cost was only Rp 5.000 (Less than USD 0.5) and he sold them at Rp 15.000 (Less than USD 1.5) for each piece.

You can compare the price of this bag with Anya's bag. Then compare the function and impact to the green and eco-fashion.

This bag made of non-biodegradable material, one bag will take around 10 -20 plastic trash, which means more trash being recycled , usable, and less plastic trash.

It also means, you will only need to wipe the bag with a small fabric and water like once a week to clean it. No detergent needed, which means less home and industrial rubbish, which means really nature friendly.

Moreover, this bag could become your ultimate groceries bag, since you don't need to be afraid of the smell of the fish, and or those watery fruits and vegetables that will leave marks and or stains on your other bag (it is a plastic bag, water resistant, dude!), plus this bag is very easy to be cleaned.

You could also use this bag as your daily bag, and or shopping bag, whenever you want to. It is easy to use, easy to clean, very environmental friendly, with a very cheap price, and you can see and feel the impact instantly. You help reducing the plastic trash in our country, participating on the environmental issues, and also contributing to the country's economic and allowing some small families to make a living.

I remembered I've found a western lady who made this kind of movement too in Indonesia, back then, during my first year of establishing my fashion business. Her products were sold at Aksara Bookstore - Kemang, at that time. I proposed to her to help her selling the products on my online store, in order to help increasing the awareness and also to allow the 'pemulung' and 'anak jalanan' in the community that she trained to make a living.

She refused my offer nicely by telling me that the first goal of the community is not to sell the products but to increase the awareness and make people realize about the problem here. She wanted everyone to be able to make their own bag made of plastic trash and or making some recycle stuff, since those bags were really easy to be made. She told me back then that she would love to teach everyone to be creative on using the plastic trash as something useful. Too bad I already lost her contact now. I've tried to search on my business card box and also my email database but couldn't found her email and or number to be interviewed.

However, if you would like the similar bag with a popular brand tag on it, you could find similar products on Dorothy Perkins. She just launched this new trendy shopping totes as her green and eco-fashion campaign. Each bag is unique and comes in either a close woven or stitched-together patchwork design.

The design was created when two hundred Filipino women decided to band together and form a co-operative to clean up their neighbourhood. Initially they merely collected rubbish themselves, but as the concept developed, they installed big refuse bins at various local collection points such as schools, asking people to recycle their used packs. As a result they now collect 50,000 packs a day.

The packs are then sorted, cleaned, sanitized, sewn together and transformed into the Rubbish Bags. Profits from the factory are divided between all the employees in the co-operative.

Four styles of the bag will be available – a woven tote (£15), a woven handbag with wooden handle (£18), a small shopper made of stitched juice packs (£10) and a woven purse (£6). The handles are made from recycled or end of line material which would have otherwise been thrown out.

From the three products, Anya's - Dorothy's - and Jajang's, all of them have similar visions and missions. The different lays only on the real impact in our environment and society (and the price, too).

We all believe big things come from small beginnings, and big changes come from small innovations. If we can make big changes by doing big things, why not? (VSPS/UKPRJKT/DSMSVC07)