"Just wanted you  to know how strong and well-made the Africa Bags are!  I've put A LOT of frozen food and meat in one......more than a plastic grocery bag would hold........the meat bled on the bag but didn't rip!  I washed the bag immediately and Voila! the bag was good to go again!  So impressed was I with the bags that our church, Mtn View Presbyterian in Loveland, CO., have purchased nearly 100 bags to support this GREAT venture in African villages.  We have sold almost all of the bags in a short time.

 Our church logo is printed on one side with the Africa Bags logo on the other.......we both get advertisement for supporting villagers as well as saving money (our grocery stores may soon charge 10 cents/bag).  It's a wonderful way to "Help Us/ Help Them/ Help us" which is Africa Bags slogan!"
Helen Wilson, Loveland, Colorado

"I love my Africa Bags!!!  I enjoyed giving my Africa Bags as gifts last year and I love using them myself.  I use them all the time; they seem to the right size for a lot of things.  They were my gift wrapping for Christmas gifts and everyone has commented on how much they like them.  I see my friends and family using them all the time and it brings me great joy to see them being put to use.  I have been pleasantly surprised with how sturdy they are."

For anyone living in the Loveland, Colorado area, Africa Bags products can be purchased from us directly.  We can either deliver the purchased items, or the items can be picked up from our location.  The shipping costs would thereby be eliminated.

Anyone who does not want to purchase products on line through Pay Pal may contact us directly at support@africabags.org for other payment options.  Please let us know the order details and we can arrange payment and shipment.

Thank you for visiting our store.  Please spread the word! Tell your family and friends about Africa Bags.  Together we can make a difference!
Africa Bags is a non-profit 501 (c)3 corporation.  A percentage of all items purchased from Africa Bags is tax deductible.  All donations made to Africa Bags is 100% tax deductible.
Africa Bags, Inc.

Ghanaian fashion accessory is plastic fantastic
By Tristan McConnell in Accra
Tuesday, 18 March 2008

TUGELA RIDLEY
Bags are made from plastic discarded on the streets of Accra

What are these?
"Our bags are complete trash" may not strike you as the perfect sales pitch. But one Ghanaian entrepreneur would beg to disagree. His Trashy Bags venture is turning the scourge of discarded plastic that litters this corner of West Africa into a cool fashion accessory.
Plastic bags are a ubiquitous feature of the African landscape not seen in coffee table books or travel magazines. In Ghana they line roads, hang from palm trees, float in the sea and gather in drifts on the white sandy beaches. In Ghana's capital, Accra, they clog the sewers that run alongside roads turning gutters into stinking repositories of stagnant water and faeces and prime breeding grounds for malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

Looking around the city, a businessman Kwabena Osei Bonsu decided something needed to be done. "I wanted to come up with an idea that would solve problems in my lifetime," he said. His solution? Collect the discarded plastic bags and stitch them together to make new, reusable bags.

In the Trashy Bags workshop a dozen tailors and seamstresses sit at manual sewing machines stitching together old plastic sachets. In west Africa tap water is not fit to drink so millions of half-litre "pure water" sachets costing only the equivalent of 2p are discarded by thirsty consumers every day. A storage room overflows with more than three million sachets that have been collected and cleaned ready for recycling.

In Accra, a small city of 2.2 million people, up to 60 tonnes of plastic packaging is dumped on the streets every day, a figure that has risen by 70 per cent over the past decade. "This menace of plastic waste has taken over our entire nation," said Sandra Wilson, a Ghanaian environmentalist, "it pollutes our soils, chokes our drains, breeds malaria and is unsightly".

Local people arrive at the Trashy Bags workshop carrying sacks stuffed with thousands of the sachets on their heads. They exchange 1,000 sachets for £2 – good money in a country where the average person earns only £254 a year.
"I collect sachets because I am jobless and this gives me money," said Hadiza Ishmael, a 55-year-old grandmother who had just arrived with 4,000 sachets. "It also makes the place look nicer."

Momentum is building to fight the blight of plastic bags globally. Plastic bags are banned or face restriction in Zanzibar, Rwanda, Somaliland, Tanzania, South Africa and Uganda. Modbury in Devon became the first European town to ban the issuing of plastic bags last year, and San Francisco the first American city. Paris and London are expected to follow suit.
Trashy Bags was launched in December last year, and so far has collected seven million used sachets from the streets, and sold more than 6,000 bags. Small recycled handbags sell for £4.