Super Eco

Photo credit: Abernook

Your seat cushion can be used as a floatation device—or a fantabulous purse—in the event of an emergency water landing. Before we take off, be sure your soon-to-be recycled seat is upright and locked, and your upcycled juice box carry-on bags are properly stowed.

Wonder what's going on? Consider the above your in-flight primer for this post, a peek at two eco-purse trends that breathe new, green life into unwanted junk—old Virgin Atlantic seat cushions and trashed Kool-Aid juice bags. Fashion attendants, please prepare for takeoff. *Sorry, barf bags not included for air travel reference overkill.

Lap of Luxury Layover: Virgin Atlantic Airways Seats “Hello gorgeous!” Are these adorable upscale purses and laptop bags more useful as floatation devices or tote-ation devices? I’ll leave that up to the frequent fashion flyers. In an odd Earth nod, Richard Branson’s trendy airline, which he fancies “the world’s most sustainable,” has winged up with British eco-design house Worn Again. They upcycled previously-sat-on Virgin Atlantic economy class seats into a colorful array of shoulder and travel bags. The tear-proof straps are made from retired seat belts; other bits from post-Glastonbury party tents and used bike inner tubes. What? No first-class cheeky bum cushion upgrades? Butt of course not, dear. Oh, well. I’ll take the cute "ladies" Ollie toiletry bag anyway. Cost: £25.00 to £65.00. Hurry aboard. Only 2,000 limited-edition, "gently used" Virgin bottoms are temporarily in flight here.

Fructose Final Destination: Juice Boxes and Pouches With their lightweight, repeating pattern design, juice boxes make for sturdy, Warhol's One Hundred Cans-reminiscent totes. Handbag heaven is about as green an afterlife a spent juice pouch can hope for; they’re extremely sticky (difficult and costly) to recycle. If you don’t mind looking like a walking Kool-Aid (or Capri Sun) commercial (“OH, YEAAHH!”), they’re a sweet, easy way to chip away at the 65,000 tons of solid juice bag trash added to the waste stream each year. Consider passing your post-consumer recycled juicy couture purse on for, say, three or four generations, about as long as juice boxes take to fully decompose. That should be enough time to save up for this svelte 100% juice (pouch) Nina Valenti number, which sucked the New York Times into asking, “And what about the straws?” These hand-stitched, deep-gusseted Abernook Kool-Aid totes are my favorite. Plus, no green-guilt vinyl straps to bristle at, like so many other juice bag-bags. Cost: $32.00 (or DIY for free). My kids would flip; Kool-Aid might as well be poison in our house.

Next up, recycled soccer ball totes and vintage hardbound bookworm clutches.

Additional photo credit: Worn Again