Messenger bags are a perfect place to start your up-cycling lifestyle, because there are lots of brands and makers who make bags out of recycled materials that look as good or even better than traditional bags. Here are some of favourite messenger bags that look great and are kind to environment.

Freitag is a pioneer in up-cycled gear. It started to make messenger bags out of used truck tarps already back in 1993 – and they’ve managed to keep the concept fresh through all these years.

727 Sailbags makes messenger bags, you guessed it, from recycled sails. You can choose from of the many designs available, or order a personalised bag.

Green Guru makes bags out recycled bicycle inner tubes. If you like your accessories colourful, then perhaps not for you, but one has to admin they’ve managed to make bike tube look pretty sexy.

Alchemy Goods is another brand that uses recycled bike tubes, and the bright green stripe adds some playfulness.

GorillaSacks uses advertising billboards as the material for their messenger bags.

And finally, we’re very proud of our own upcycled messenger bags, too. You can make some pretty darn stylish bags out of written-off firehose that would otherwise be burnt or sent to a landfill.

The size of the the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is estimated to be between 700,000 square kilometres (270,000 sq mi) to more than 15,000,000 square kilometres (5,800,000 sq mi) – or up to 8% of the size of the Pacific Ocean. So the question is not whether to buy recycled products or not, but which one to buy.