The Original Sustainable Shopping Bag Goes On The Pull

The Turtle Trolley - Once the enclave of the blue-rinse brigade, 95% of 500 UK women aged 25 – 45, interviewed by sustainable bag manufacturer Turtle Bags, would love to use a trolley for shopping if the choice extended beyond the traditional plaid box bag on wheels.

Trolleys look set to become the trendy shopping accessory, according to the research by Turtle Bags.

Sixty percent of women liked the fact a trolley allows you to carry more shopping without the back-breaking and finger-numbing experience of endless carrier bags. However, the eco-benefits of a trolley were also a major draw.

95% of women try not to carry plastic carrier bags

70% felt they were more likely to walk to the shops than drive using a trolley

89% stated they would chose Fair Trade over price even during the economic downturn

Turtle Bag creator, ecologist Beth Williams, travelled to Sri Lanka to work with the Turtle Conservation Project (TCP), who established a women’s textiles co-operative at Rekawa, one of the TCP’s conservation sites. Beth worked closely with the women to design and make her innovative, stylish and durable trolley bags.

Turtle Bags is supporting sustainable economy in some of the poorest parts of the world. Rekawa is also an important nesting ground for five of the world’s seven species of endangered marine turtle. These turtles and their habitats used to provide the villagers with an important part of their income yet the population of turtles is likely to have been destroyed if these practices continued.

Before the TCP arrived at Rekawa in 1993, all of the turtle eggs laid there were collected and sold for food by Rekawa village men. Village women earned additional income by harvesting the local coral reefs to burn for lime, which was then sold to the construction industry.

The TCP now employs former village egg collectors as nest protectors and supports a number of village collectives developing more sustainable sources of income for the project, including a small turtle-watch programme targeting tourists staying in local hotels. However the effect of the tsunami in 2004 compounded by political disturbance in 2006 and 2007 has led to a crash in the numbers of tourists, so the success of the collective is vital to the income of the project and the villagers involved. The production of Turtle Bags’ turtle trolley bags will provide important business for the village textile collective.

Turtle Bags are also offering a recycled cement bag as a further trolley bag option. These are produced by a women’s group in Tarango, Bangladesh, which was established to help women escape from the dependency and exploitation of abusive marriages.

Turtle Bag Trolleys cost £34.95 for the bag and frame and replacement bags cost £14.95 and are available on-line at www.turtlebags.co.uk The work in Sri Lanka was carried out in association with the Marine Conservation Society who are supported by the BBC Wildlife Fund. Turtle Bags promotes and supports the work of the Marine Conservation Society.