Monica Ralli: Turning Urthbags Into High Fashion

The handbag is a key accessory that women use not only to tote their essentials but also to proclaim who they are and what they are about. Each woman is different and the style of the bag certainly reflects an individual’s personality. The brand of bag especially signifies a particular affinity for style, taste and financial status. However, most women never give much thought to the amount of waste regarding the production of handbags much less what is done with all of these high end fashion bags once they are no longer in style. One day, Monica Ralli opened her closet door to find that she had quite a collection of handbags and had come to a realization that all of these bags are so extremely wasteful. They are produced from materials that are contributing to the pollution of our earth and the waste is expanding the size of our landfills. So, she decided to do something about it and created UrthBags (http://www.urthbags.com) In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, Monica Ralli will discuss with June Stoyer, how UrthBags has been working with co-operatives around the globe to recycle everything from juice containers, phone books, newspapers, glossy magazines, hand collected shells and packaging waste materials to make some really high end handbags that are now being sold in some of the finest hotels in the world. To find out more about how she started her company, the challenges of reaching a high end market, working with global co-operatives and what it is like to create a successful business model during a very tough economy, stay tuned!