Hi

Having known since the mid '80's that plastic bags are incredibly convenient, but terrible for the environment, we at Onya were troubled every time we forgot to take a re-useable bag to the shops. You just don’t have a reusable bag every time you need one, do you? There must be a solution, Jon (Onya Bags Inventor) thought.

And then… a shiny, bright, light, strong and cool hammock provided the inspiration for the first Onya Bag. It was made from parachute material and scrunched down into it’s own little pouch. The Onya was born: a re-usable shopping bag that is light, bright and extremely handy, that pops into a tiny pouch in-between times! A bag for all those unplanned 'spur of the moment' trips. As convenient as a plastic bag but not bulky to carry around like the ones from the supermarket. And how to keep it onya? A carabineer clip for your keys or your handbag!

Jon Brousson started selling bags at the Fremantle Markets in Australia five years ago and about four years ago his big brother, Dan, started selling them at Greenwich Market in London.

Onya Bags UK HQ is now based in Suffolk, where Dan lives with his family. HQ is supplied by Good Energy which is 100% renewable electricity – created from wind, water and sunlight. All of us at Onya Bags UK work from our own home offices – so no smoggy commuting for us except by foot from one room to another!

We have been members of ethically audited online green directories,

Ethical Junction www.ethical-junction.org ,

One Green Earth www.onegreenearth.com and

Green Finder www.greenfinder.co.uk  for over 3 years.

We use Royal Mail for all our mail order deliveries because it is an existing delivery network. We’d rather not use a duplicating delivery system, so that we can keep our carbon footprint smaller. 

We try to operate a paperless office system but any paper we do use is 100% recycled and we always re-use it if we can. There is nothing wrong with the pale, lonely back of a piece of paper! All commissioned printing is done on 100% recycled paper and using vegetable inks.

Since the humble beginnings of Jon and his hammock, Onya Bags have developed with constant consumer feedback and we now have six different lines! To date worldwide we have made 750,000 bags, and with every Onya replacing 1000 plastic bags – that’s a whole-lot of re-using!

We don’t just want to replace plastic bags, though; we also want to challenge a culture of waste and disposal. So last year we expanded and started selling

reusable bottles,

sandwich wrappers Onya Lunch and Wrap-N-Mats

– have a wander around the site to see what we’ve been up to!

If you’d like to know more, please give Me a call and I’d be delighted to have a chat!

To read our ethical policy please click on the sustainable stamp below