FASHION Make it click - as a cool shoulder bag

Designer Satsuki Takenouchi creates handbags made of recycled car seatbelts. Photo/George Novak

A Tauranga trust is intent on reducing waste in style, turning disused seat belts into fashionable bags.

Local car wreckers and Plunket's car seat recycling programme have pitched in to provide unwanted belts for the project, which sees the tough strapping woven into women's handbags.

"When cars are crushed, the metal is recycled but thousands of seat belts go to landfill every year," says project designer Satsuki Takenouchi.

"Now, once the seat belts have finished saving lives they can help us save the planet."

Ms Takenouchi, who works for the school-focused national waste minimisation programme Paper4trees, says she and her colleagues are always looking for ways to keep waste from skip bins.

She hit on the bag concept while holidaying in Japan where she saw something similar and tried making one herself. When it sold, she made more, along with smaller purses designed to hold keys, credit cards or a cellphone.

"We took the seat belt bags to a conference recently and people loved them. We sold all our stock so I've been frantically sewing more in time for Christmas."

Ms Takenouchi says the seat belts are also used to make handles for another kind of bag she has designed, which utilises old billboard signs.

All the products fall under the umbrella of Tauranga-based environmental trust EERST.

The trust focuses primarily on encouraging schools and community groups to recycle and reduce all waste to landfill.

"These bags are a bit of a departure for us but they're fantastic because they reuse a resource that was being dumped," says Marty Hoffart, trust chairman.

"We're creating a good-looking, practical product and we're creating local employment while we're at it. I've had to increase Satsuki's hours to keep up with demand and we're working with Creative Canvas, a local canvas company, to help us with the sewing."

He says the trust has plenty more plans in the works, including a scheme to reuse corflute real estate signs.

The bags are sold at the EERST office, website paper4trees.co.nz, and it is hoped they make guest appearances at local markets this summer.